Remediating abstracted character designs into a three-dimensional medium

Abstract: This paper examined how well different levels of visual abstraction in 2D characters can be remediated into 3D, focusing on the viewer’s opinion of the character and perception of its role or personality. Artifacts of two characters—six artifacts in total—were used in order to examine this. Each character’s artifacts consisted of 1) a visually abstracted 2D design, 2) an abstraction-preserving 3D model, and 3) a non-abstraction-preserving 3D model. Six participants were interviewed, and were asked to state their opinion of each artifact as well as their interpretation of its role and personality. The results showed that a 2D to 3D remediation method aimed at preserving design choices either did not affect the viewer’sopinion of the character, or made them like the 3D character more than the 2D version. Furthermore, the perception of character personality had slight differences in the abstraction-preserving 3D model compared to the 2D image.