The design ideation process of character animation story

Abstract

The design ideation process of a character animation story was researched in this study. The critical design ideation process of experts' thinking was normalized. The Design Structure Matrix approach was used to analyze the ten basic elements which influences story ideation and to find the correlation between design elements regarding their independence, dependence and interaction in two senior animation experts' design ideation process. Then the experts' complex thinking was analyzed. The results showed that 1. Both senior experts repetitively mentioned the important elements in their design ideation process. These elements became critical thoughts. 2. Experts used the design pattern set into the story ideation; it made the design thinking more efficient. The two experts used the "metaphor" before conception; and then the design form of "camera language" and "body language" were taken up in the later half stage. 3. Expert A1 conceived of "story structure" as the first priority and then emphasized the logic of the whole story. Expert A2 created the "character conflict" to generate opposition in the characters to make the animation show more dramatic tension. 4. The two experts believed that the "character task" and "character personality" were important elements in the process of thinking of ideas. The results of this study provide the beginner with specific guidance and procedural aspects of the ideation process when developing an animation story. PREFACEWriting usually comes from the creators' idea in the animation design. The communication of the idea is the most important design factor to form the story. Good communication would promote the value of animation. Wells (2006) mentioned that the "Story" is the key and should be the most focus before the animating process. However, beginners often do not know how to design a good story in learning process of animation design. The beginner usually has weak ability to develop the follow-up story idea, even while having many design ideas presented. While the beginners' inspiration and imagination begins to emerge, the ideas should be better organized to communicate and promote the ability of storytelling. Therefore, conceived methods and procedures are important particularly for design a good story.Design thinking is based on the method and on procedure of story ideation. Simon (1969) considers that "design thinking" is a creative process that produces practical solutions for problems. Therefore, exploring thinking would produce a more effective idea in the design process, and result in better design thinking methods. For this reason, understanding the expert's experience of the idea for a story would be helpful for the design of a character animation story.

Linkographic Analysis of Design Ideation Session: Idea Graph Representation and Additional Tools for Analysis

“…Contemplating ideas is associated with the ability of reasoning, self-reflection, of the ability to acquire, apply intellect, intuition and inspiration, etc. In Wu et al [8] analysis of ideas are identified by three different types of ideas : new , revised and modified. The idea that team discussed it for the first time in the ideation session is called new idea.…”

“…The 'cluster size' is the number of ideas in the cluster. For further details, we refers to this research work; Bilda and Gero [14] and In Wu and al [8].…”

“…To better understand dynamics that take place in the ideation, the Linkography research approach proposes a method for recording, visualizing and analyzing connections between actions, ideas or events. The proposed method is seen as a system of notation and design analysis process that focuses on links between design moves, design ideas or decisions developed by Goldschmidt : [2], [3], [4], [5] [6], [7] and extended by others [8] [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14].Van-der-Lugt [15], adapted Linkography approach was further developed as a method for assessing the idea generation process by means of investigating the connections between ideas produced in the ideation. The Van-der-Lugt research work aims to understand the black box of the ideation process to better understand the inner processes under which ideas are elaborated.…”