Dobri duh Biokova: waking a stone giant

The brief: a character, a screen and one line item

The project brief called for software and animation for an interactive screen: a character who sleeps, wakes when touched, estimates certain visitor attributes and expressions, and talks to them. A game called Sounds of Biokovo was also part of the brief.

That was one line item. We had to turn it into a character with a personality, a branching script and an application for independent use in an exhibition. Brojka's work connected character development and performance with the encounter at the screen, working with Smart AV and the other project collaborators.

From an early sketch to a stone giant

Early sketches explored a different direction: a friendly illustrated grandfather. As the design developed, we chose to connect the character more closely to the place he belongs to. Biokovo is rock, so its storyteller became stone.

The giant is large, grey and rough, but his face still needs to read clearly. Where is he looking? How does his expression change? What happens around his eyes and mouth as he speaks? Production notes return to the eyes and eyelids, because on a large screen small details become part of the performance.

Stone gives him weight and a connection to the mountain. Movement and voice give him character.

Writing an encounter

The client supplied the texts, which we adapted for the interactive encounter. The script could not be one uninterrupted monologue. We needed to work out what the Spirit does before visitors arrive, how he greets them, what he offers and how the encounter ends.

During development, we separated several groups of situations:

• sleeping and waking;
• different greetings and forms of address;
• offering a story or a game;
• story sections and reactions;
• saying goodbye and returning to sleep.

This structure called for separate performance and animation segments. The application connects them according to the situation and the visitor's selection. A line needs to work both on its own and as a continuation of what came before.

A character who notices his audience

A camera and facial analysis software allow the application to estimate an age group, gender and certain facial expressions, then adjust the character's form of address and response. These are system estimates; the interaction uses a set of prepared performance options.

One reaction captures the idea particularly well: when visitors talk over him, the Spirit interrupts his story and asks them to quieten down. Their behaviour affects how the encounter unfolds.

Those reactions needed to stay within the character. A greeting, a question and an interruption are different technical events, but visitors meet the same storyteller throughout. Script, animation and application logic had to develop together.

The actor behind the stone

The giant moves like a person because the movement began with a human performance. Kristijan Kaurić performed the movements for motion capture. We transferred the recorded performance to the digital character: waking, greetings, gestures accompanying the story, reactions and different endings.

While the stone character was still being made, we tested scenes on a stand-in model. That let us discuss rhythm, duration and movement before the final renders.

A tilt of the head or a gesture needs to fit the line. When the script changes, so does the relationship between the voice, mouth movement and animation timing. Even a short passage may need several rounds of work.

Voice: warmth and a bit of silliness

The voice had to belong to that large face without thundering all the time. The direction called for a likeable, slightly silly performance, with room for quieter delivery and more serious passages.

Recording and editing therefore involved more than finding a good voice. Delivery, rhythm, mouth movement and prepared animation needed to work together. Ambiences, music and sound effects add another layer to the encounter with the character and the mountain he describes.

The game: Sounds of Biokovo

Alongside the stories, visitors can choose a listening game. The Spirit plays a sound and the visitor identifies the mountain setting it belongs to on screen. The answer receives visual feedback.

Story and game offer two ways into the same world. Some visitors want to listen to a storyteller; others want to try an answer straight away. The menu shown in the exhibition documentation offers both choices.

What goes into a single stone face

Visitors see a giant on a screen. Behind him are character design, performance, voice, animation, sound and decisions about what should happen next.

Dobri duh Biokova brings them together in a storyteller who belongs to Veliki Kaštel and can address the people standing in front of him. That was the shared task behind all these different kinds of work.

See the Dobri duh Biokova project · Read about motion capture

Contributors and credits

• Client: Kaštel Kotišina
• Main contractor: Smart AV
• Character design and 3D: BROJKA
• Texts: supplied by the client; adapted by BROJKA
• Voice: Ivica Gunjača
• Motion capture performance: Kristijan Kaurić
• Application programming: DotGame / Siniša Ilakovac
• Music: Resonanta
• Voice recording, synchronisation and final audio post-production: Red Studio
• Selected character and development-model frames: BROJKA

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