XR Network+ seminar: Digital Avatars and Character Design
Online
Hear about two XR Network+ funded projects that are using XR technology to advance the world of digital avatars and character design.
Shapeshifter is a location-based, mixed-reality experience in development in which a live actor performs as a 3D animated character within a virtual environment to an audience wearing VR headsets. Exploring the variety of representations of sex and gender in nature, the experience encourages the audience to reflect on their own notions of gender and identity, and their assumptions about what is ‘natural’.
David Gochfeld (Performance Lab Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), Ruth Mariner (freelance Creative Director and narrative designer), Maggie Bain (freelance director and performer), and Freyja Sewell (futurist designer and artist) will share the design features and challenges that come with delivering real-time mocap performance for a non-human avatar, as well as their strategies to give the actor greater control and expressivity.
Our second presentation discusses an R&D project exploring real-time character performance within video games.
Virtual characters in interactive storytelling games interact with a complex environment using different modes of communication, such as speech and gestures. Whilst these virtual characters can be highly realistic, sound and image qualities are often challenged by the limitations of real time production requirements.
Andy Bossom (Industry Engagement Lead for Games & Creative Technology, University for the Creative Arts) will be joined by the project’s industry partners SKC Games Studio to explain how the project used state-of-the-art AI to develop a system that produces real-time performance for both in-game player and AI-driven non-player-character avatars. This led to the creation of real-time virtual characters used in SKC’s interactive role-playing video game, Project UN – Taradene
Booking info
Cost: Free