JAS

This final artefact has been the most useful artefact created during this research project because of the drastic improvement it has shown to the quality of the performance seen in Artefact 4. During the creation of Artefact 5, the original Bill Hicks scene was analysed to help understand the different facial expressions that were used in conjunction with specific words. Whilst studying this footage it became apparent that Hicks has a very unique face and way of speaking. He often speaks out of one side of his mouth and his lips are very exaggerative when articulating certain words. All of these observations helped to improve the performance of the digital character being worked on; they enabled added layers of complexity within the character’s face that instilled a greater depth to the character that weren’t seen in Artefact 4.
This artefact is the best example that has been created during this research project; it shows how using reference material can enhance the authenticity of a performance of a digital character, which was what the initial purpose of the research aimed to show. Although this artefact is a great improvement to previous artefacts, there is still room for improvement. In certain areas, the digital performance leans on the original too much; merely mimicking a real-life performance is not enough in the digital realm, a digital character must go further and exaggerate certain actions in order to accommodate for the obvious physical limitations.
Furthermore, a digital performance is always limited in some way by the character’s rig and specific model. There are parts of Hicks’s original performance that simply could not be replicated using the Morpheus rig because of how it has been put together. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of the Morpheus rig; it is merely a reality that must be acknowledged. Again, it was not the intention of this research to directly mimic the actions of the real-life performer, rather to understand the motions in that performance and translate them in a way that fits the character being animated. If someone actually wanted to mimic the exact actions of a real person, they would either have to model and rig a character with that in mind, or use state of the art motion capture technology, which would capture the minute details of a particular person. However, even motion capture has its limitations and it cannot be solely relied upon. Animators are often needed to tweak and alter certain parts of the capture footage.