Shapes of Emotion

My role: Motion design • Digital design • Art direction

Art direction

Motion design

Sound design

Art direction

Motion design

Sound design

Emotions whether positive or negative, we all have and are dictated by our mood, circumstances, relationships etc.. However, we can experience them many different ways that are unique to us as individuals.

Shapes of Emotion is a personal project in which I wanted to convey various states of emotions in an abstract way. This came to me as an idea as I struggle to describe my state of emotion in words, so visual representations of these states of emotion better translate to me on personal level.

Background

When approaching Shapes of Emotion, I aimed to create something visually immersive and engaging for the viewer. I wanted the meanings behind each scene to be easily conveyed as a state of emotion. Visually, I focused on the use of universal elements that could be understood by most people coupled with sound to enhance the experience.

The objective of this project is to Create a 1-minute 16:9 3D animation, showcasing an interpretation of the 4 basic emotions Joy, Anger, Fear and Sadness.

Objective

Challenges

Solutions

Conveying each emotion while maintaining a consistent feel

Create a consistant theme/element to link each emotion

Switching between emotions without breaking emersion

Make the transitions between emotions seamless

Incorporate ambient sounds to enhance the emotion portrayed

Sound design

Historically emotions were seen as a complex spectrum based on 8 core emotions. Later theories suggest that there were 6 basic emotions that translated to body language and facial expressions.

As individuals, we tend to view our emotions as complex, however, based on recent research, when it comes to the human experience there are only 4 basic emotions.

These are the theories that I came across in my research. Each one played a key part in my approach to the final product.

Research and inspiration

Robert Plutchik

Paul Ekman

Wheel of emotions

Robert Plutchik

Robert Plutchick suggested that there 8 basic primary emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger, and disgust. His wheel of emotion illustrates his theory through the use of colours to show these primary emotions at different intensities.

6 basic emotions

Paul Ekman

Paul Ekman theorised that there are 6 basic human emotions that are shared universally through our facial expressions. These include happiness, surprise, contempt, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger.

4 basic emotions

University of Glasgow

New research from the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at University of Glasgow theorised that there are only 4 basic human emotions that we experience. These are happiness, sadness, fear & anger.

In my pursuit to make visuals of the emotions easy to understand, I landed on using primitive shapes as the main element to portray each emotion. Shapes are universal to most people and have characteristics that can be related to their respective emotions. This concept then led me to the name of this project 'Shapes of Emotion'.

This also gave me the idea of having a starting point for the 4 basic emotions, Tranquility. I chose a square to represent, which translated to a cube within the animation. I think this worked conceptually as the 4 sides of the square represent each of the emotions and the cube with its 6 sides relates to the 6 basic emotion theory.

Being inspired by the Wheel of Emotions, the use of colour played a big part in conveying the 4 emotions as well.

Concept

Storyboards

Joy

#FFC118

Amber

#DF885E

Persian orange

#4E4187

Ultra violet

#215996

Lapis lazuli

Sadness

#D4E1ED

Alice blue

#A9C2DB

Powder blue

#414853

Charcoal

#2A2F36

Gunmetal

Fear

#78E6BC

Aquamarine

#004539

Brunswick green

#996DFF

Medium slate blue

#2D0037

Russian violet

Anger

#FF856C

Salmon

#E02006

Chilli red

#A3A3A3

Silver

#00000

Black

Tranquilty

#F7FFFF

Mint cream

#5EB5B6

Vergigris

#73898C

Slate grey

#5D6F72

Payne's grey

Typeface

Marro regular

Design specifications

Here is a short breakdown showcasing each stage of the sound design process.

Sound design

He are some image comparisons of the development of the visuals from the beginning stages of modelling and animation to colour grading and applying effects to the final video.

Visual development

Production process

In the end I was happy with final results of the video. I think I was able to achieve my objective conveying the 4 basic emotions visually and amplify them through sound.

The were many challenge that I came across through this process as I had to use many animation techniques, some I was familiar with and others which were new to me. The techniques used in this project range from fluid simulations, particle simulations, instancing objects and creating models via geometry node, rigging model and it goes on.

This was a great project to work on as it allowed me to test myself and learn more about finding ways to work around the limitations of software and finding the best solutions.