Between July 2013 and March 2014 I was involved in a pilot study. The aim of the project is to study the effectiveness of an on-line counselling environment for people between the ages of 13 and 25 who are affected by cancer. The website of the study is http://cevolve.wordpress.com/ and the project isfunded by the 2012 Tenovus Innovation Grant Scheme.
My role in the project was to help develop the software. My tasks included:
The user will be able to customise the look of their avatar. A creation suit was designed to allow the user to switch various elements of their avatars apparel. The avatars body shape was made to be gender neutral. A male and female character can be created using different hair styles and clothes.
Below is a video which demonstrates the avatar creator.
My role in the project was to help develop the software. My tasks included:
- Character design - responsible for the design and development of all 2D concept artwork through to final 3D avatars
- Asset creation - avatar with changeable assets.
- Character animation including motion capture shoots / scheduling, data clean-up, hand animated core-emotions for all facial animations.
The user will be able to customise the look of their avatar. A creation suit was designed to allow the user to switch various elements of their avatars apparel. The avatars body shape was made to be gender neutral. A male and female character can be created using different hair styles and clothes.
Below is a video which demonstrates the avatar creator.
avatar creator from Andrew Leeuwenberg on Vimeo.
Once the user has created their avatar then can enter their counselling session. The users avatars has two types of emotions states. The first is their core emotion. This is how they are feeling overall. The core emotion can be changed by clicking their avatar. A radial menu will appear with all the available emotions, represented as emoticons. The appropriated emoticon is then selected and the statues is changed. The character animation will reflect their new statues.
The second emotion is a reaction. This is a short emotional response to something, such as a comment, but their overall emotion does not change. An example would be if the user was surprised at something the councilor said. This can be changed by either typing in a string in the chat (e.g :) equals happy) or clicking on the emoticon icon in the bottom right of the chat box. This will cause a drop down menu to appear with all the available emoticons.
The video below demonstrates the discussed chat features.
The second emotion is a reaction. This is a short emotional response to something, such as a comment, but their overall emotion does not change. An example would be if the user was surprised at something the councilor said. This can be changed by either typing in a string in the chat (e.g :) equals happy) or clicking on the emoticon icon in the bottom right of the chat box. This will cause a drop down menu to appear with all the available emoticons.
The video below demonstrates the discussed chat features.
avatar chat from Andrew Leeuwenberg on Vimeo.