1. Final Presentation
Carnegie Mellon University
Entertainment Technology Center

2. TEAM
Juan J. Ramirez
-
Co-Producer
Mac Lotze
-
Co-Producer
Jon Lew
-
Designer /
Programmer
Robin Lee
-
Programmer
Xiaoyi Zhang
-
Lead
Programmer
Jiahao Xia
-
Artist
Rachina Ahuja
-
Artist

3. ADVISORS & CLIENT
Shirley
Saldamarco
Personal Robotics Lab
Mike
Christel

4. BIG PICTURE
GUI
May
1
To turn HERB into a stage actor, controlled
by an operator through a tool using
parameterized animations

5. DELIVERABLES
Set of expressive animations
An intuitive and flexible interface
Open-source code
More efficient pipeline

6. RECAP

7. HALVES
Rehearsals /
User Testing
Animation Design
(Parameterization)
Implementation
of Tool

8. SOFTS
• Demonstration of tool
• Composing individual actions to form sequences
• Adjusting parameters: openness & intensity
• Built a sample sequence from the play
• Showcased videos of HERB executing
animations

9. STRATEGY

10. TWO-PRONGED APPROACH
• Hand animation to work directly with lab
• Parameterized animations as part of future research

11. HAND-ANIMATED ANIMATION
• Time constraints: 3hrs in the last two weeks
• Technical Difficulties with HERB

12. HAND-ANIMATED ANIMATION
• Emotional playtest advised the crafting of animations
• Primary contributor (60%) to all animations used in play

13. FINAL PLAY

14. DESIGN

15. INITIAL DESIGN
• Hand crafting the animation and return transition
• Generating parameterized animations

16. DRAWBACKS OF DESIGN
Main Problem: Transitions are too obvious
• Sometimes breaks the intended performance
• Can be used as part of the performance
Sample Transition

17. ITERATION ON DESIGN
Remove end poses and transitions
 Parameterizing animations with fixed end pose

18. ITERATION ON DESIGN
Closed
Open
Old Design
Closed
Open
New Design

19. DRAWBACKS
• Animations conform to a fixed rule-set
• Less range of modification for openness
Takeaway: Combining both designs give most flexibility
Old Design New Design
Range of movementRange of movement

20. IMPLEMENTATION

21. BLENDER PLUGIN
Adding to the Robotics’ Institute’s toolset: Parameterization Plugin

22. TOOL (SOFTS)
• Implemented parameterization, tested with robot

23. TOOL (PERFORMANCE)
Save/Load to support plays

24. Filtering based on pose graph
TOOL (PERFORMANCE)

25. PLAYTEST

26. STUDY
• 27 participants
• 4 Animations x 4 Versions:
• Openness (High/Low)
• Speed (High/Low)
• Based off Robert Plutchik
scale

27. RESULTS
High Openness High Speed perceived to be most intense
Key
O – Openness
S – Speed
L – Low
H – High

28. RESULTS
Extremes were clearly identified
High Openness High Speed
VS
Low Openness Low Speed

29. FEEDBACK
• Emotions are hard to tell
• Could be improved with
• Quicker motions
• Facial animations
• Deformations/Translations

30. COMPARISON

31. Parameterized Animations
Short simple actions that can be
modified
• Combine/parameterize for
variation
• Small tweaks on-site
• Simple to Add
• Huge initial overheads
• Not tested for more
complex animations
Hand Animations
Long complex purposefully created
animation sequence
• Actions tend to become
reused
• No changes on-site
• Requires more time
• No initial overheads
• Subtle touches increase
expressiveness
PROS AND CONS

32. Parameterized Animations
Short simple actions that can be
modified
Hand Animations
Long complex purposefully created
animation sequence
COMPLEXITY

33. LESSONS

34. EXTERNAL TECHNOLOGY
Challenge
• Complex external technologies/resources
• Technical difficulties in getting technology to work outside the lab
Lesson
• Get the client to understand this difficulty early
• Troubleshoot on-site
• Plan more for dealing with external technology

35. WORKING WITH HERB
Challenge
• HERB was designed to be a functional robot
• Simulator is limited in artistic fidelity
• Robots have physical limitations
Lesson
• Simulators can only simulate  Access to robot
• Understand the big picture of things – acceptance of HERB by
humans

36. CONCLUSION

37. SUMMARY
Set of expressive animations
Hand animated and parameterized animations
An intuitive and flexible interface
Interface that supports the play and parameterized animations
Open-source code
A more efficient pipeline
Blender Plugin, Updated Wiki, Workflow with external parties
Hand animated and parameterized animations
Interface that supports the play and parameterized animations
Blender Plugin, Updated Wiki, Workflow with external parties

38. THANK YOU