Leslie Bishko is an animator, educator, lifelong dancer, and Certified Laban Movement Analyst. Her creativity, teaching, research, and passion are focused on the integration of Laban Movement Analysis with animation.
1.Introduction to this Collection<br>By Joshua Tanenbaum<br>2. Author and Editor Bios... more 1.Introduction to this Collection<br>By Joshua Tanenbaum<br>2. Author and Editor Bios<br><br><strong>Section I – Introduction to the History and Theory of NVC for VWs</strong><br>3.Basics of Nonverbal Communication in the Physical World<br>By Joshua Tanenbaum, Michael Nixon, and Magy Seif El-Nasr<br>4.Basics of Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds<br>By Joshua Tanenbaum, Michael Nixon, and Magy Seif El-Nasr<br><br><strong>Section II – Identity and Communication in Virtual Worlds</strong><br>5. Our Empathic Experience of Believable Characters<br>By Leslie Bishko<br>6.Virtual Gaze: The Communicative Energy Between Avatar Faces<br>By Jeffrey Ventrella<br>7.Avatar Appearance as Prima Facie Non-Verbal Communication<br>By Jacquelyn Ford Mori<br>8.TimeTraveller™: First Nations Nonverbal Communication in Second Life<br>By Elizabeth LaPensée and Jason Edwar...
The evolution of animated movement at the Disney studio during the 1930s is pivotal to the formal... more The evolution of animated movement at the Disney studio during the 1930s is pivotal to the formalization of believable and authentic movement parameters. During this era, a core team of animators began to experiment with animated movement. As reported by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (1981), Walt Disney pushed the animators to develop their skills and create a more physically believable animated world. Gradually, a terminology, or language of animated movement evolved, which became known as the Principles of Animation (Johnston & Thomas, 1981). As these precepts are widely known and can be referenced in The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, I will briefly paraphrase them here and apply them in context throughout this chapter.
Now we are prepared to discuss character movement in virtual worlds, using the movement vocabular... more Now we are prepared to discuss character movement in virtual worlds, using the movement vocabularies of the Animation Principles and Laban Movement Analysis to look for empathic effectiveness in terms of functional/expressive believability and authenticity. This section touches on movement in keyframe animation, motion capture, interactive console games and real-time puppeteering.
Visualizing the a Scale: A Visual Supplement to Teaching Choreutics
“Let's start at the very beginning A very good place to start When you read you begin with A-... more “Let's start at the very beginning A very good place to start When you read you begin with A-B-C When you sing you begin with do-re-mi Do-re-mi, do-re-mi The first three notes just happen to be Do-re-mi, do-re-mi Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti Let's see if I can make it easy…” In the film, “The Sound of Music,” Maria realized that a linear recitation of the chromatic scale would not work; she needed a method for teaching the notes that would be fun and appealing to children. She also knew that she wanted to teach them more than notes – she wanted to give them a language for music: “Now children, do-re-mi-fa-so and so on are only the tools we use to build a song. Once you have these notes in your heads, you can sing a million different tunes by mixing them up.” Her method uses words, and the words form rhyming patterns that help cement the notes to memory. They also convey visual images, such as “Sew, a needle pulling thread,” and tell a story: “When you know the notes to sing, you can...
Animation Studies – Vol.2, 2007 The Uses and Abuses of Cartoon Style in Animation Introduction
“Cartoon style” in animation broadly refers to animation design and movement that adheres to the ... more “Cartoon style” in animation broadly refers to animation design and movement that adheres to the 12 Principles of Animation, defined and developed at the Disney Studios. The Principles evolved through trial and error, by observing motion on-screen and noting what aspects of animated movement served the believability of the characters. To this day, the 12 Principles of Animation are known by all animators and used as a benchmark for good animation. Yet, these principles are not complete movement concepts. They influence specific movement patterns that are often applied without consideration of their effects, resulting in characterization that lacks authenticity. Viewers have come to expect that animated character performances portray the illusion of a living being. As a determining factor for believability in animation, authenticity functions on two levels. First, we suspend our disbelief and engage with the character; there is no question of the character’s aliveness. Second, throug...
After downloading this file, click on the DOWNLOAD link to access the interactive Visualizing the... more After downloading this file, click on the DOWNLOAD link to access the interactive Visualizing the A Scale DVD (.iso format). After you download and unzip the .iso file, you can play it on your computer using the VLC movie player, or you can burn it to a DVD.
While virtual worlds have evolved to provide a good medium for social communication, they are ver... more While virtual worlds have evolved to provide a good medium for social communication, they are very primitive in their social and affective communication design. The social communication methods within these worlds have progressed from early text-based social worlds, e.g. MUDS (multi-user dungeons) to 3D graphical interfaces with avatar control, such as Second Life. Current communication methods include triggering gestures by typed commands, and/or selecting a gesture by name through the user interface. There are no agreed-upon standards for organizing such gestures or interfaces. In this paper, we address this problem by discussing a Unity-based avatar pupeteering prototype we developed called Body Buddies. Body Buddies sits on top of the communication program Skype, and provides additional modalities for social signaling through avatar pupeteering. Additionally, we discuss results from an exploratory study we conducted to investigate how people use the interface. We also outline steps to continuously develop and evolve Body Buddies.
Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts, 2009
The interactive entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In ... more The interactive entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 1996, the US entertainment software industry reported 2.6 billion in sales revenue, this figure has more than tripled in 2007 yielding 2.6 billion in sales revenue, this figure has more than tripled in 2007 yielding 9.5 billion in revenues [1]. In addition, gamers, the target market for interactive entertainment products, are now reaching beyond the traditional 8–34 year old male to include women, Hispanics, and African Americans [2]. This trend has ...
Relationships between Laban Movement Analysis and computer animation
ABSTRACT Bringing my sensibility for movement to the computer animation process has revealed prob... more ABSTRACT Bringing my sensibility for movement to the computer animation process has revealed problems in the areas of interpolation and shaping. In trying to address these problems, I began to explore Laban&#39;s theories of movement observation, description, and analysis. The analogies I found between dace and animation have given me a new way to think about the computer animation process. The core of my artistic concern as an animator is to be expressive using qualities of movement. Learning about dance has helped me focus on finding the kinesthetic relationship between the expressive drive and the animation process. Laban&#39;s methods of movement analysis are parametric, like computer animation. It is possible to create animation software based on these parameters. This would create a metaphor of the dancer&#39;s movement processes, allowing animators a closer relationship to the physical feeing of movement while maintaining the kinematic process that is the animator&#39;s craft.
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