with Nigel
This week’s session focused on continuing the development of research design strategies and methods. We explored how different methodological approaches shape a project and how choosing the right method depends on the research question.
The lecture helped clarify the relationship between research design and methodology, especially how they work together to structure a study. We also looked at key reference materials that can support our understanding and guide our decisions when planning research.
with Ting
This week in class we were introduced to creature animation and started preparing for a group creature study presentation. We were divided into groups and asked to choose an animal, then prepare a presentation for the following week focusing on its anatomy, locomotion, movement patterns, and overall characteristics. My group chose bears, so we started researching references, watching documentaries and locomotion videos, and analyzing their movement frame by frame. It became one of the most interesting parts of the course for me because the deeper we looked into the anatomy, the clearer it became how directly structure affects locomotion, weight distribution, rhythm, and balance. Observing how the spine, shoulders, hips, and paws work together during movement was very useful from an animation perspective.
For the dialogue shot assignment, I decided to focus entirely on polishing the body animation before moving into facial animation and lip sync. This was also the main direction of the feedback I received. I worked on making the poses feel less floaty and more grounded and snappy. One of the biggest challenges during this process was maintaining continuity through the spine, neck, and head movement while still keeping the performance dynamic and readable. After several passes, I managed to make the movement feel more connected and natural. I also pushed the poses further by exaggerating them more and prepared the shot for the following week’s feedback session.
with Serra
This week’s session focused on learning the basics of NDisplay in Unreal Engine. After being introduced to the technical setup and seeing examples in class, we experimented with creating our own animated visuals and environments using the NDisplay system.
I especially enjoyed the hands-on aspect of the session because it allowed us to freely test different visual ideas and immediately see the results in real time. Creating my own animation setup was both fun and useful for understanding how projection, camera perspective, and screen space interact inside Unreal Engine.
Outside of the class exercises, our group continued developing ideas for the project and agreed on a more specific direction. We decided to explore the relationship between AI and human identity, focusing on how AI systems process, analyse, and simplify human behaviour into quantifiable data. We became interested in the idea that, from the perspective of an AI system, people are reduced to patterns, numbers, and datasets rather than individuals with emotions or personal experiences.
With this concept established, we shifted our attention to technical research. We started investigating how TouchDesigner could be used to visualise this process through real-time data extraction and generative visuals. We explored AI-related plugins, machine learning and training tools, motion tracking, and interactive workflows, while watching tutorials and experimenting with different techniques that could support our concept.