breathing characters

Has anyone seen this on youtube?Breathing Life into Shape (SIGGRAPH 2014)
I think it would be great to have a character that can breath in a videogame.

The only thing is that such realism as breathing would possibly require automation in the animation department for games.

When you add that along with other small details as twitches, small facial movements, and finger movements, you end up having a monumental amount of work for the programmer if he or she is not to fall into the uncanny valley. It would, in a way, be even more so than with a film since the smaller movements and muscle controls would have to react in a believable way in every possible situation the player can go into both physically and emotionally (and I say the programmer since each animation control would have to be controlled by logic for the most convincing animation).

It would be more than just moving the chest a little in a loop, what about breathing rate, heaviness of breath, and cases where the character can’t breathe, you would need to automate the controls with logic. Okay, it may not sound like that much work, but that being by itself without other subtle movements of the body will just give that uncanny effect.

In the future, when the technology has gotton that much more, realism can be expected to play a major part in game. However, at the end of the day, it’s what the game player wants that decided. While realism is good, how much the game play factor is worth ? Point to ponder on…

There have been games that let you cut through things.I believe this is just the next best thing.And the breathing could be handled by a computer allgorithm in certain situations.May be someone could build it into their game engine.It would make things a lot easier.Maybe someone could build it into the blender game engine.

stick a bone in the chest area, paint weights, use copy scale,

manipulate the scale of the object the bone is copying scale from :smiley:

(logic or python)

health is low (heart rate goes up)

explosions and stuff - rate goes up

ran for a long time?

range and rate go up

Perhaps another idea for your game.

This is perhaps the greatest idea that you can implement in your game. Imagine this feature - it could easily set your game apart from others. And all that with just some logic and/or python.

…lol… and you just casually revealed this competitive edge.

My game is mit 3.0 cc :stuck_out_tongue:

Does making that conflict with your MIT license?

You can always find “one more thing to do.” But, before you actually do it, take a very hard look at what it will actually add (if anything …) to “the overall show.” Are you really going to have a “facing-the-camera medium shot” prominently in your game such that the player will actually notice … and care … that the character is “breathing?” (Normally the rule is simple: “Alive” == “Breathing, but so what.” “Dead” == “Not Breathing.”) :wink:

And when he is (breathing, that is) … say, when it’s an important plot-point that he’s breathing hard … how does he show it? Probably not just with his chest. He’s probably throwing his whole upper-body into the move. If he’s “just standing around,” then breath is probably a not-very-important part of what’s called “stage business.” No actor on-stage is ever perfectly motionless. But the only time you might notice his breathing is when he’s trying to “remain perfectly still,” e.g. when the bad-guy’s coming down the corridor and Our Hero(ine) is quietly cocking the gun, preparing to spin around the corner (s)he’s hiding behind and Blast The Goon. Very slight movement of the shoulders and/or of the back are probably going to convey that.

I would simply add it to the usual animation channels especially at the standing (idle) animations. It is worth as long as it adds to the plausibility of the character, just like the noticeable micro-motions a living human body would do.
Don’t create dolls, create characters with a character!