Motion Palette
A Creativity Support Tool for Motion Exploration: Study Two
Overview
The Study One results and design implications give me inpiration on 3 design direction: Direct Control — state-of-the-art node based visual programming tools have intermediate visualization of each node, but few of them have enabled reified controllers that allow direct manipulation on the visual results; Stylistic Toolbox — for designers creating a series of work, they can create their own workflow templates and effect filters; Customized Exploration — parametric space can be customized thus easier to explore.
From the user data in Study One, I'm particularly interested in motion graphics designers, especially artists playing with shaders. I created a persona Edward based on 5 interviews, and decided to design for him. The interaction design of the project followed the guidelines of Intrumental Interaction.
Role
HCI Researcher
Problem definition, literature review, critical object interview, thematic analysis, prototyping, experimentation design, user testing, structured observation, qualitative and quantitative analysis
Persona
Edward is an visual artist who creates dynamic visual effects. His daily tools for creation include Unity and WebGL. His work is characterized by irregular movement of particles and other dynamic visuals. To create his artwork, he deals with sliders in properties panels and text based programming on a daily basis. To explore different possibilities of one digital art piece, he has to save a lot of screenshots to record all the parameter values and the corresponding effect. He also works as a VJ to do live performance at music events. For the live performance, he would use a MIDI controller with sliders that are mapped to the parameters in his dynamic visual artwork.
Design Concept
Brainstorming and Prototyping
1. Sketch
2. Paper Prototype
3. UI Concept Design
Design Concept One
By compressing the parameters into a bundle, 1 set of parameter value combination can be considered as a state. Multiple discrete states of motion can form a continuous motion space.
Design Concept Two
Multiple motion spaces can form a more complex compound space. This compound space can be a frequently used toolbox for creation and performance. For example, the compound space can carry the semantic meaning of Laban Movement Qualities.
Prototype
Save States in Gallery
State Copy: Drag State out of Gallery
Create and Explore Palette
Save and Revisit Snapshots
Applying to Shader Art
Future Work
This research project can be further expanded in these directions:
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Reinforcement learning can be combined with the tool to find extreme states to form the palettes;
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Currently the multi-dimensional parameter space is compressed onto a 2D surface, but it can also be compressed into a 3D space where the palettes can be manipulated through AR/VR interaction techniques;
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The current application scenarios are focused on parametric design and generative art, but the tool can be applied to any multi-state systems controlled by multi-parameters.