Panda's Show of Emotion

Biggest part to this project is the show of emotion. On our trip to the Zoo I was very interested in not only how the animals behaved and reacted to their enviorment but also how we as humans would interact/react with the animals. This idea was the foundation to my project so It's extremely important I get it right. I am relying on the panda's emotion to capture an audience's attention and get them to feel for him. So to ensure this happens, I have drawn up a range of different panda heads, each with different expressions so that I can translate the required emotions in my animations and across to the audience. With the emotions I have drawn them with regard to the reading we did recently. When happy, the panda has its ears pointed, when sad or distressed, it pulls them back. Then I have the change to the mouth, frowning to portray sadness, opened to portray distress and smiling to portray happiness. The lines around the eyes are also included as you can see to better communicate the required emotion.

Ice Panda - Illustrated

Progress with my character! Have taken my ideas from sketching into illustrator and knocked this little guy up. Looking pretty good. Not a fan of the image of him sitting up though, I think when it comes to animating him, I will keep him on all fours.

Sketches of Ice Panda

Need my character designed already! Soo I have gone nuts with trying to sketch an idea of him up. Enjoy!



More Heads:

Sorting out the Switch

Been looking on the net to sort out how to make up a switch with the Arduino. Got it working eventually with this setup:



Will keep this for reference for later just in case I forget how I did it.

Finalized Idea

After doing a bit of thinking I have now settled on an idea that incorporates my red panda animal as picked last post after going to the zoo. Basically the idea is that my character is a genetically modified red panda. Scientists developed him as part of a project titled "Ice". They wanted to see if they could turn the red pandas weakness into a strength. Red Panda's cant stand the cold so they developed one to be able to live in these conditions with ease. Unfortunately those in charge pulled the plug on the project and the lab was shut down, the panda abandoned. Now the poor little guy is stuck lifeless within what's left of the lab. He can't leave as he needs to stay within his ice enviornment. If he were to leave he would die. But he is also not doing so well as he needs to be kept charged up as he was never finished to the point where he can live and cope on his own. This is where the user input comes into play. They see the panda on screen, very dozy, suffering. In front of the user is a type of switchboard that acts as the controls of the panda. If the right areas are pushed - and held, panda will jump start and come back to life, happy. If the wrong areas are pushed though, this wrong combination will unfortunately hurt the panda and you will wind up increasing his suffering. If nothing is pushed at all and you leave him be just as the scientists did, then panda will continue to try get up and move but with no energy, collapse.