Group Projects

Groups

You will be working in groups for your project assignment. There will be a total of 6 groups with 2 members in each group. Please check out your assigned partner below.

Group 1
Lucia
Ying

Group 2
Jenna
Sindre

Group 3
Riley
Ian

Group 4
Lac
Cherry

Group 5
Vincent
Aria

Group 6
Bing
Vivyan


Projects

The first thing you will do as a group is to select a research project to pursue. We have compiled and listed several below and encourage you to select whatever interests you. If you prefer to design your own project, please do so. Keep in mind that if your group goes with their own project idea, your group will be expected to pitch the project to the instructors before pursuing it. You will need to collect initial feedback, respond to the feedback and work on a project that has been greenlit. We want to be sure that the level of difficulty and the workload you are attempting is in line with the other projects. Keep in mind that your project should connect in some way to facial expression research.

The list is below and will be covered in class in more detail.

  1. Stylized Character Typology Project.  There is a wide range of stylizations that have been successfully employed in recent animated features.  How would you create a library of stylized characters using screen shots from animated films. One way would be to attempt to categorize stylized faces from less to more, based on an as-yet-to-be-determined set of criteria, for instance. The project could include creating a library of cardinals taken from screen shots for each character we decide to categorize.

  2. Subtle Expression for Stylized Characters.  So far we’ve tested and had success bringing our various characters to ≥85% for the cardinal expressions, but only in their most intense form.  If there is an optimal pose for smiling, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear that will consistently test at that level when the pose is the most extreme, can we obtain the same strong results with an “optimal” more subtle version of the same expressions?

  3. Universally recognized facial expressions. Can we define “rules” for universally-recognized cat/dog/pig designs with extremely minimal shape/line information? What are the shapes that trigger recognition of the cardinals when the face is subject to extreme stylization, and how would you design a research study on this topic?

  4. Non- anatomical patterns for Facial Expression design. Virtually all expression research is focused on strictly anatomy-based descriptive systems (FACS) and poses.  It’s clear that non-anatomical patterns can also be effective for communicating facial expressions, but it’s much less clear how to describe and test those patterns. How could you use MT to answer these questions? One aspect of the research could be to design a user study that would help you discover the limits of these shapes.
    Please consider how artists would use the results of your research.

  5. Perceptual differences between stereo and monocular vision. Most perceptual studies on human expression recognition are performed on monocular static images or video.  In real life, people perceive expressions with both eyes using stereoscopic vision. How would you investigate perceptual differences between stereo and monocular vision by asking the question "Is the perception of stylized character expressions changed by stereoscopic vision?"

  6. Emplying Facial Expression recognition to improve FE training. Can real time expression recognition tool kits help train people to make more readable expressions with their own faces?  In other words, can expression recognition software make you a better actor or communicator?  How would expression recognition improve FE training and can you identify how it would improve outcomes as compared to simple visual feedback?

  7. Automatic Expression transfer between characters.  There is a vast set of existing literature on automatic expression transfer for human and stylized characters. After reviewing this literature, can you propose and implement a proof-of-concept system that transfers expressions between characters? Please define and evaluate the effectiveness of your implementation as compared to artist created transfers.

  8. Storyboarding automated Expressions from pre-existing dialog. How would you create an automated expression storyboarding from pre-existing dialog?  Review the literature, propose and implement a proof-of- concept system that automates expression storyboarding from either written or spoken dialogue or both.  Use a natural language processing toolkit such as the Python NLTK or manually mark up the dialog text.  Evaluate the effectiveness of your system as compared to an artist created storyboard or storyreel.

  9. Automated interactive FE blocking system for multiple characters in Pre-Production. How could you design a system that would pair facial expressions with specific acting and poses related to the interaction of characters as part of the “blocking in” phase of a 3D story animatic. How could you implement the system so that the personality of each of the characters could be most effectively “directed” by the animator without the use of either written or spoken dialog?


Assignment After you have decided with your group members which project to pursue, you will need to address the following questions and write down clear answers for us.

Part 1
Written project proposal. No more than 2 pages.  Use the proposal as the initial draft of your final project paper.

  1. What’s your proposed title? Provide a brief and meaningful title to your project
  2. In one (brief) sentence, indicate to us what important, relevant, and unsolved idea you are pursuing
  3. What is your research hypothesis?
  4. Define your methodology - How are you going to answer your question?  What do you need to build/construct to test your idea?  How are you going to test the idea?  What are the roles and responsibilities for each team member?
  5. How do you intend to conduct your Initial literature search?
  6. Schedule/Calendar – break your project into sub-deadlines – provide sub-deadline goals for 2x week for 5 weeks with the culmination of your work your completed research project. You will need to reverse engineer knowledgeably and effectively.
  7. Define for us how you plan to test your big idea. What would be a potential User Study?
  8. What are your expected outcomes? Does your schedule and calendar support successfully reaching the outcomes? What are your tangible results and deliverables?

Part 2 (Due March 16 by 6:30pm)
Finally, here’s your Final Turn-In checklist for the materials we expect for the final turn-in on March 16th. Your last critique will be held on Friday March 13th at 1:30 pm. Please be ready for this critique.

Final Turn-in (Please look at the SIGGRAPH format at this website: and use this example to format your own papers. You do not need to include CR Categories or keywords.

Note: You will be expected to do a short presentation covering your project outcome and your approach to your process.

Also, You will be expected to write down the feedback your receive and address any concerns. You will also be expected to write a self review of your process and final product.

Keep in mind that the final your class will meet and your final work completed is March 16th at 6 pm. Your final will include all group presentations. You will each be expected to provide a self-evaluation.

Turn in the following into Collect-It on Catalyst: