Designing unnerving animations for enemy characters in a three-dimensional horror game

Abstract

Enemy characters serve multiple purposes. They exist to challenge and motivate the main character to achieve their goal. Together with the main character, they drive the story through conflicts and resolutions. In the horror genre, enemy characters are also being utilised to be the source of fear, anxiety and repulsion to their audience. In video games, animation is used to affect the player's emotions towards a character. The objective of the thesis was to distinguish the techniques for producing 3D animations for video games that can effectively induce negative feelings in the players. Relevant pieces of literature regarding 3D animation techniques and psychological research on motion and fear, such as the uncanny valley phenomenon, were gathered and studied. Two research methods were utilised to further study the topic. In order to complement the aforementioned literature, a study of the practical approach to the concepts was explored. Under qualitative research methods, comparative analysis was used to examine characters from existing films and video games. It was used to identify recurring animation design aspects that effectively convey the horror features of each character. Under processual methods, action research was used to aid in the development of the game project which the study is intended for. The action research was organised into five stages namely, diagnosis, planning, acting, evaluation and specifying learning. This study explored the use of 3D animation techniques such as keyframe, motion capture, and procedural animation to effectively create horror animations. This study also realised that a character's appearance, movement speed and nuances greatly impact the viewer's reaction to the character.