GMU:Spacial Information Lab/Emilio Aguas

World Greetings - and social Behavior

Cultural behavior, cultural shock, personal space, environment and surroundings always have an effect in the way we behave and interact with other people.

Our emotions and body gestures are affected by others and the way we try to established a partnership.

Idea

Every time we are in a place surrounded with to many people we feel restrained even more if it's a small place, but also is a good setting to meet people.

When we meet some one new we try to be very formal and not show to much of us, but at the same time our bodies are telling so many things about ourselves to others, like postures and facial expressions.

With the Motion tracking and facial recognition device i will try to attempt to see and understand patterns in our facial expressions; it doesn't matter where you are, where you come from, we feel confortable with people that we already know, and a little awkward the first time we meet or greet some one.

Some cultural behaviors are more well prepared to deal with this kind of situations, because the proxemics they use to greet but with out been rude like bow or just a firm handshake.

An anthropological experiment and analysis could been seen here:

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H. Whyte [1]

Approximations

First attempt of face tracking into blender

1. tracking facial expressions

2. tracking facial expressions

3. tracking facial expressions

Emotions

6 Basic Emotions of every human being

1. Human Emotions

Emotions

*Sadness	*Happiness
*Disgust	*Anger
*Surprise	*Fear

For more than 40 years, Paul Ekman has supported the view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman's most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media. Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (e.g. disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched the distinct facial expressions. His research findings led him to classify six emotions as basic: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise

Take a look on the complete chapter on Basic Emotions by Paul Ekman here[2]

Nonverbal Communication

In human relationships, physical contact is everything. We used to show empathy, affection, love, friendship, closeness or even anger. Touch shows the other person our feelings, and is able to dodge the barrier that sometimes involves the use of the word itself. The reason is simple: because the physical contact, unlike language, is universal. No need anyone to teach us, for example, does it mean a hug.

1. Analyzing body movements

2. Body and particles

3. Body and particles render

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Project Development

After doing a point cloud tracking for facial expressions and having a lot of troubles with the PLY files I decided to just work with obj and fbx files, the ones that the kinect sensor could be watch in the following images.

PLY as OBJ In CINEMA 4D

PLY as OBJ In CINEMA 4D

PLY as OBJ In CINEMA 4D

Now, here are some screenshots of the OBJ files in blender with the fbx files from the tracking system of the DBL.

Fbx in Blender

Fbx in Blender

Fbx in Blender

Testing the animations with 3d objects combined

<videoflash type="vimeo">155028688|1080|360|</videoflash>

project inspiration and documentationFile:Emilio Greetings.pdf

Here it is the final result, of combining different points of view of the same greeting

https://vimeo.com/155007474

<videoflash type="vimeo">155007474|1080|360|</videoflash>

Comments

Hey Emilio, if you are interested in the emotions in the context of interaction and 3D computer graphics check out the EmotiCon by Charles Wütherich: EmotiCon - Interactive emotion control for virtual characters
Wütherich is a collegue of Ursula Damm, here at the Bauhaus.
— Martin Schneider 00:18, 7 December 2015 (UTC)