1/19 Noise, Variability In Movement

I think it's very important that characters are given some additional noise. When they're moving, noise might not make a huge difference, but I'm sure we all can agree that a character standing completely still looks unnatural. When real people stand "still," they shift their weight, touch their clothes, and look around. It's impossible to stand completely still, which is why adding a little bit of noise to an animated character can make all the difference. What I did notice, though, is that there's definitely such a thing as too much noise. We looked at some of Ken Perlin's interactive characters, such as the Emotive Virtual Actors, the red/green couple, and their level of noise works. Granted, they're pretty simplistic characters, but I think the way they move when left alone looks believable. Then if you look at the Face Demo, the close up of a woman's face, it's like she's moving nonstop! If you tell someone to look straight ahead, sure, they will move a little, but no one naturally moves as much as this woman does when told to hold still. I learned from these examples that while noise can help the character not to look robotic, it's easy to overdo it and stop being natural and believable.