Presentation:
Draft:
Hello, everyone, I’m Lucy, thank you for listening my presentation. Today I want to take about The Application of Animation Technology in the Game by Analyzing Just Dance. So, let’s start.
At the beginning, I need to tell you what l will report. Firstly, I will analyze how Just Dance is applied to video games from the perspective of animation design. Then, I will speculate the possible developmental trend of game animation in the future. Now it’s the flowchart, which shows you the steps.
Let’s move to introduction. In the 21st century, the advancement of science and technology and the improvement of people’s consumption level have promoted games playing to become a way for people to ease their minds in their daily lives. Therefore, whether in the market of personal computer, game console as well as mobile, games have huge economic potential.
Take China for example, look at the picture! It is clear that from 2008 (two thousand and eight) to 2019, the revenue of Chinese game market rises rapidly. This fully speculates the possibility of the game market in the future, which means that people can choose more games. Therefore, players expect more high-quality games to be designed.
Now let’s take about Just dance. In 2009, Ubisoft company released a dance game Just Dance. The core gameplay of the game is to track the player’s dancing actions with a motion controller while songs are played, and live dancers are demonstrated. Players can score points by the actual dances. Why I choose this game as the example, the game mechanic of this game is dancing, Therefore, it can use a lot of animation forms to enrich the visual effect of the game screen. What’s more, as we know, this company is rich.
Before I start, I would like to admit my limitation. I need to declare that it is just a shallow report, but I try my best to search for a lot of information in the papers or Internet.
Now I begin to present the Analysis of Animation Technology. From the perspective of character design, let’s watch a video.
It’s a really technological acknowledge. In live action, we need to understand how they change real man to the data.
Firstly, the dancers are transformed into cartoonish characters.
Then, the producers build human bones from the dancers with at least 20 identifying nodes. These nodes are designed to be computed by sensors like Kinect and to be generated depth image data which can determine if the player’s posture and gestures match.
Finally, the producers track the bone points in detail, which is used to build a coordinate system. In addition, they need to make sure the angle of the junctions and calculate the relative positions to judge and identify the dancers’ posture as well as position.
Now we see 2D. Due to the game mechanic of Just Dance, the production of 2D character animation becomes extremely difficult. But in the UNO of Just Dance 2021, the game team provided a production method that looks like a 2D character animation. That is to say, after the real shot is taken, the computer analyzes the light and shadow and get the threshold [ˈθreʃhəʊld value of the body colors of the real dancer. The colors values above this threshold will be retained, and those below will be removed. So, the producers design the characters’ body part cartoonishly and layered 2D ink lines.
In 3D, the team of Ubisoft Shanghai has taken a new approach with Just Dance2020, using motion capture technology, which takes data from real dancers and maps them onto 3D characters. Based on the video, it is not hard to notice that they are using an optical motion capture system which is now the most popular 3D motion-capture technology because of its high sampling rate, the wide range of movement of the performers, and the lack of cable and mechanical limitations.
motion capture huge beneficial impact on saving the cost of animation production, improving the efficiency of motion design.
It is the mainstream to make 3d games now. So I really hope I can study it.
I used to make a stop motion, it is really troublesome. So many people will ask: why they prefer to make stop motion animation. And I think every form of animation have its own shining points, there must be someone like to make and pose the characters and scenes by himself under the camera.
Ok, let’s move to scene animation without characters. Also It divided by several pasts.
First is a pretty interesting technology. But I think it just an experimental and creative method to enrich the visual effects of games. If the game company need to save cost, probably they won’t do that.
Two-dimensional technology is widely used in games, especially in the scene design of 2D games. Because comparing with other technology, 2D technology is simple, cost-efficient, and full of creative potential. Different from live action and 3D, the technique of 2D animation has developed quite mature. Now what can attract the attention of players is the form of expression, or the interesting artistic style which is able to become a big selling point of a game.
Similar to 2d technology, 3D game technology, whether it is 3D animation, or modeling, lighting, rendering, and so on, has unlimited potential under the innovation of technology. For instance, the current popular Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technologies’ innovative development will absolutely enrich the gameplay of video games in the future.
Although in my essay, due to my lack of knowledge, I cannot go deeper into the connection between animation and game, but in conclusion, no matter what type it is, all animations can be connected into the game.
On the one hand, this can be due to the needs of technology and development costs.
On the other hand, this can also be a display of art style and artistic effect,
As I just mentioned, animation also affects the quality of the game. Therefore, in the future, with the development of the game market and players’ desire for high-quality games, the animation design in the game will definitely have huge innovations in technology and art.