The first machinima-based Expo submission comes from Xellessanova Zenith: "You Caught Me at a Bad Time", shot and modeled by the submitter, and edited by Ute Hicks. It combines Model Pose 26 by Michael Firefly, and "Stand_005" animation by Scarlett Butler (from the AniMe stand animation), with avatar shapes XellDefault and XellContempt by Xellessanova Zenith. Ms. Zenith included some fascinating background on the uses of avatar expression, and her creative process for the submission-- read that after the break. Details on submitting your own Expo screenshots and videos here.
Xellessanova Zenith on "You Caught Me at a Bad Time"
The trouble I've found with expressions in Second Life is that
animations are wonderfully expressive, if often cartoonishly
extravagant, but they only last for a few seconds. This means that I
can be sobbing my heart out for five seconds, but it quickly fades
back into my default expression— wide-eyed with a faint smile. This
emotional contradiction, especially linked to the exaggerated emotionality of the gesture, tends to break the believability of the
animation, so I rarely do it.
Shapes, on the other hand, can maintain base expressions through tweaking of the face sliders, but can't open the mouth or tighten the eyebrows in the way an animation does; this limits the range of possible emotional expression. However, quickly moving from one shape to another can produce a subtle shift effect (tightening the lips, narrowing the eyes) that is extremely realistic.
So to bridge the gap, I have several tweaked shapes that produce a range of emotions from happy (changing the entire shape of the face from eyes, cheekbones, and lips) to depressed to disgusted— but I typically find myself literally "putting on my happy face" before I interact with people so as not to give the wrong impression or influence their moods.
Beginning a gesture with a particular facial shape changes the context of the gesture: starting with a sad look and triggering a smile produces a mixed emotion—"I'm smiling, but I'm still sad inside"; starting with an angry look and triggering a smile generates a look of scorn or even cruelty.
The first portion of this video involves an animation of surprised embarrassment; it zooms in and cuts to an angry, seething look of indignance. As the animation fades, to a static pose and the default expression-shape, I shift manually to another expression-shape. The key to the video is really the crossed arm positioning of the hands across the chest: initially a gesture of protective modesty, it becomes stubborn, demanding some sort of accountability with the movement from one facial shape to another.
Technically I realize that this is two emotions, but in the real world...the play of emotions can turn in an instant from anger to self-pity, or from fear to joy.
-Xellessanova Zenith
Comments