The
recent push for more detailed graphics and realistic visuals in animated
productions has sparked much debate around the new films’ photorealistic visual
style. Some critics argue that the new “live-action” versions of movie classics
such as the Lion King are not as visually stylish as the original ones, and the
photorealistic characters are not as likeable, fun and intriguing as their
stylized counterparts. This paper reports ongoing research whose goal is to
examine whether it is possible to apply traditional animation principles to
photorealistic animated animal characters in order to make them more
expressive, convincing and ultimately entertaining. In particular, the study
reported in the paper investigated the extent to which varying degrees of
exaggeration affect the perceived believability and appeal of a photorealistic,
anthropomorphic cat character performing a series of actions in a high detail
environment. The study included 82 participants and compared three levels of
exaggeration applied to the cat’s motions, e.g. no exaggeration, low
exaggeration and high exaggeration. Findings show that subjects found the
no-exaggeration clip more appealing and believable than the exaggerated
versions, although the difference in appeal was not statistically significant.
When comparing the two exaggerated clips, participants rated the high
exaggeration clip higher for believability and appeal than the low exaggeration
one.