{"id":20,"date":"2025-04-08T09:41:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xarts.aegean.gr\/?p=20"},"modified":"2025-04-08T18:08:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:08:53","slug":"advances_in_transmedia_character_personality_design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xarts.aegean.gr\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/advances_in_transmedia_character_personality_design\/","title":{"rendered":"Advances in Transmedia Character Personality Design"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

XARTS 2025 Call for Communications<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analytical considerations-Rationale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry Jenkins, the inventor of the term Transmedia, explained eloquently the change in his creative practice over time: When I first started, you would pitch a story because without a good story you didn\u2019t really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take off, you pitched a character because a good character could support multiple stories. And now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple stories across multiple media.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These considerations [1] reflect the changes in distribution technologies from cinema theaters to TV networks to internet platforms. As it is frequently the case in the History of media all these changes are interrelated. Immersive experiences of the narrative worlds are taking place across multiple media, engaging the audience through different technological platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is this affecting the design of characters in transmedia worlds? Following Transmedia Character Theory, \u201cusually, the term character is reserved for such fictional (or fictionalized) protagonists and accordingly opposed to the term person: We are only able to \u201cmeet\u201d the former through media texts. In a way, characters can then be regarded as the \u201ccurrency of media [\u2026], their universal means of exchange\u201d [2]. This is especially true for today\u2019s \u201cfranchise era\u201d in which media content is produced and distributed in complex industrial practices across interconnected digital platforms [3].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The malleability of digital space permits the construction of animated worlds with transformative qualities, assimilated sometimes to characters. At the same time, interactive VUPs (viewers-users-players) may play the role of characters in transmedia narratives, reflecting parts of their personality in the digital world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theoretical considerations- Scripted versus pictorial characters with personality<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theoretical considerations in Character Studies are discussing the difficulties in designing believable characters [4]: In many ways, characters do not even seem restricted to narrative media but are found everywhere around us on material objects, in bodily performances, in adopted figures of speech \u2013 in our Umwelt, our Lifeworld. Some narratives \u2013 and their characters \u2013 might be body-centered (slapstick, cartoons), while others might be mind-centered (psychological narratives or crime dramas); others again might be social-centered (melodramas or sitcoms).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Character traits can then be either (1) physical (what characters look like), (2) mental: We are granted some sort of access to their \u201cinner life,\u201d their subjectivity; as well as (3) social: What relations they share with other protagonists and how they are positioned within their world<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pictorial media, by contrast, always seem to depict a fictional or fictionalized character \u201cas a whole,\u201d whether there was an actor in front of a camera or whether some cartoonist created a colorful illustration<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous Research discussed the background theory for creating believable characters, specifically looking into psychology, animation, communication, and acting to create a repository of models that can be used to towards a comprehensive nonverbal behavior model and formulate its link to character attributes. Acting, Timing and Drawing techniques are available as guiding principles to convey personality to fictional characters. To mention only a few references coming from animation and dance, we may recall Disney\u2019s 12 Principles of Animation<\/em> [5] and Laban Notation Movement Analysis<\/em> [6].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IMAGINE- Digital Media and technologies shaping characters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we come to the implementation of digital worlds, every pictorial element has its equivalent in the data space, analyzed in spatial, color, sound, and texture coordinates. Every change in the data space corresponds to a change in the visualization space and vice versa. Graphic logic is coupled with digital logic, conveying change potential to the represented world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To complicate things, most of the design principles invented by practitioners in the past were limited to specific media and must be adapted to be used in other media. The design principles may be implemented using various technologies, adding another level of complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible to provide a new design framework to practitioners, adaptable to digital characters as a currency over different digital media? We tackle this question in a Research Project titled IMAGINE MOCAP funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), and undertaken by Researchers from the University of the Aegean, the Ionian University and the University of Peloponnese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IMAGINE stands for Interactive Media, Animation, Games, Interactive Networked Environments, four digital platforms providing room for experimentation in image, interaction, and sound design. We\u2019ve experimented with Motion Capture, Wearables and Live Coding technologies to render personality in digital characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main objectives of this Research are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n