Lab 6: Conveying Emotion through Gesture
IDS252: Computer Animation Production, Fall 2007

Goals

• Create a character or setting that conveys some feeling, emotion or personality through the use of gesture, lighting, color, and camera.

Gesture

A gesture is defined as "a movement or position of the hand, arm, body, head, or face that is expressive of an idea, opinion, emotion, etc.: the gestures of an orator; a threatening gesture." (dictionary.com)

Directions

1. Tutorials: In Maya, go to the tutorials on Animation (under Learning Resources;Getting Started with Maya;Animation) and work through as much of the tutorial Lesson 5: Inverse Kinematics as you can. This tutorial introduces you to Hypergraph as well as rigging. Rigging is the process of setting up a character using skeletons, control nodes and inverse kinematics to control the movement of the character. The process is not simple and you may find this tutorial a bit confusing - don't worry if you don't get everything the first time through.

   Note: Understanding how to use Hypergraph and understanding the concept of hierarchical modeling will be very useful in this lab. Many of the other tools you learn in this tutorial will be very useful later on. You are not required or expected to use rigging and inverse kinematics for this lab.

   The file you need for this tutorial is IK_MechArm.mb which can be found at

   C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\GettingStartedLessonData\Anim

   This tutorial will not be collected.

2. Creating Character or Setting:
   • In class, you will be randomly assigned an "emotion" that you will try to convey in your image.

   • Suggestions:

     • Think about the types of gestures that might be used to convey this emotion. Act it out in front of a mirror.
     • With the gesture in mind, create a VERY simple character capable of conveying the emotion through body language and/or facial expression. You might want to include props to help tell the story. The choice of lighting, texture, and camera must work in support of the emotion you are trying to convey. Every element in your image should be chosen for a reason!
     • You will need to do a lot of experimentation to get the effect you want. For example, play around with different viewpoints, colors/textures and lighting to set the mood. How do your choices change the feel of the scene?
     • What is the "story" behind your character? You are only displaying an instant in your character's life, but the events that led up to that instant are important in the choices you make for your image.
     • Pay attention to staging. Is the character placed in the view in a way that focuses attention appropriately? Does the lighting and background color hide or bring out the character?

   • Create a single still image of your scene and/or character.

3. In class on Monday, Oct 8, place a "rough draft" of your piece in IDS252Fa07\Lab6\ROUGH_DRAFT.

Note: The music students will take your images and add a "sound" to it. They will also provide us with music they have created - it will be a brief sound that expresses some emotion or feeling. In the next lab you will create another still character scene that fits this sound.

Evaluation

Place your image on enfuzion in the folder IDS252Fa07\Lab6\FinalEmotions. Name the file using your last name. Do not name it according the emotion you are trying to express. Let's see if the musicians can figure it out without you telling them.