Immersive Game Motion: Using Generative Emotive Motion to Heighten Player Immersion

A crucial part of gaming is the feeling of immersion within the game’s world, characters, and story. However, immersion in the context of gaming is often used broadly without a clear definition or direct explanation of why it occurs. This research is a part of the Wiri Project which aims to make on-screen actors behave like stage actors, providing feedback on technology developed in the group. It first aimed to investigate and develop a definition of immersion that could be used to frame the research. It then investigated how using an advanced generative machine-learning animation system to drive character motion and emotion can provide a greater sense of immersion through running a small study where a demo game utilising this animation system was trialled. It was found that while there is not a significant increase in player immersion with the current implementation of the animation system, including an emotive component did invoke a stronger positive and negative emotional response from players.