Computer Graphics & Animation

Biography

Biography: Khor Kheng-Kia

Abstract

With the advent of 4th Industrial Revolution, many traditional performing arts and games are facing severe competitions from the ones in digital forms and media. Most of the youngsters today are widely and highly exposed to the ubiquitous and proliferate online/ mobile games inundated with stunning and delectable Computer-Graphics (CG). Therefore their interest towards traditional performing arts are evanescent. This global phenomenon is threatening the survival of traditional performing arts in many developing countries.

Figure 1: A Motion Capture Experiment Related to Malaysian Shadow Play (image courtesy of the author)

In Malaysia, almost all traditional performing arts and games are receiving lukewarm interest from the local youngsters and thus many of them have either extinct or unlikely to last long. This include wayang kulit Kelantan which can be perceived as a national shadow play with high-standard of cultural and artistic values.

McLuhan’s theory asserted that technology innovations are merely enhancements or extensions of ourselves and people will use them to enhance their current activities, practices and values. Since 2006, the author has been studying on the application of Computer Graphics (CG) in capturing, simulating, preserving, conserving and reviving the arts and visual of traditional wayang kulit Kelantan.

Key-frame animation, motion capture, procedural animation techniques, just to name a few, have been explored and applied by the author in many experiments related to wayang kulit Kelantan. In addition to that, a methodological framework has also been introduced in 2016 to suggest the best possible outcomes for digitalization of wayang kulit Kelantan. Here, the author would like to share with the CG adepts from all parts of the World on my decade of research related to the convergence of traditional shadow play and emerging CG techniques.