作者：Guy Hasson

若你有手头有角色对话文本，而且你知道这不是单纯的文本，而是关于动作，角色实施这些动作具有特定目的。问题是：角色说话的时候，你要如何调整他们的肢体动作？你不能只是让他们站着讲话。这不仅枯燥，也不符实际。你会怎么设置他们的手？其他身体部位？他们会发生移动或者只是站着不动？

米老鼠 from i1.ce.cn

剧场理论可供我们参考。而且能够有效解决此问题。

以下是角色需满足的4大肢体属性。它们适用各种类型。

肢体属性 1：角色个性

环顾四周，你会发现大家的站姿都独一无二，这源自他们的个性。这实体属性和人物情感、语言或心情无关。有人常眉头紧锁，有人仰面朝天，有人驼背站立，有人常呈现疲态。大家的姿态都各不相同。

我们在此基础上添加具体内容。

肢体属性 2：角色心情

每个角色在不同时候都有不同心情：喜悦、悲伤、惊讶、狂喜、沮丧和生气等。这建立在属性1基础上，你需确保角色呈现某种心情。

有时我们无法判断某人的心情。这是有原因的。若角色冷酷无情，是个禁欲主义者（游戏邦注：体现在属性 1），我们就很难判断其心情。但即便是禁欲主义角色也存在某种心情。有时这能为视觉所见。你要保证准确呈现。

若角色需隐藏心情，需确认其掩饰是否成功，是轻轻带过，还是略显生硬。你要保证准确性。

肢体属性 3：角色动作

满足前两个设计要点之后，角色还需执行相应动作。我们需呈现工作落实过程。

假设你是其中角色。你知道动作是什么。想想要如何实现这个动作。现在你得自己实施此动作！你会怎么做？你必定需采取某行动，因为角色必须通过行动实现其目的。

再来记住角色还有一定干扰。这会给你采取行动的方式带来什么影响？其次你需说服自己必须采取行动，这样你就能够发现角色将实施的肢体动作。

呈现角色动作有个例外情况，那就是呈现角色反应。鲜有人同时反应和行动。惊讶，错愕，不知所措，全神贯注聆听，或发笑的时候，我们没有行动，只有反应。角色亦是如此。

肢体属性 4：角色如何落实动作

不同角色呈现同个动作的方式都各不相同。有的角色恃强欺弱，有的角色只会无力地表示生气，有的角色略显卑鄙，有的角色非常迷人和性感，有的角色十分友善，有的角色则常常嚎啕大哭。

这决定角色肢体动作，以及对应面部表情。

举例说明

要阐述得一清二楚非常困难。幸运的是，此前的作品在此方面表现突出。有些例子是很好的学习工具。

首先看看伊利·亚卡赞的《欲望号街车》。跳至中间任一多角色说话的片段，定格画面。你会在各画面的所有角色中看见上述所有元素。

回到迪斯尼还活着的时候，其动画都恰到好处地遵循这些规则。想想原版《小飞侠》，1940年《幻想曲》当中的舞蹈编码和魔术师学徒编码。《米老鼠》、《唐老鸭》、《布鲁托》和《高飞狗》，这些都是迪斯尼在世的作品。定格画面，看看迪斯尼是如何实现所有肢体属性。

不论是严肃的田纳西·威廉斯（游戏邦注：美国二战之后最杰出的戏剧家之一）戏剧、《米老鼠》卡通动画，还是制作中的游戏，这些规则都适用，都有助于你设计角色互动场景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Story Design Tips: What To Do with Characters When They Talk?

by Guy Hasson

So you’ve given your characters dialogue, text to speak. You’ve even made sure that the dialogue is not just cold text, but actions, and that these actions come from the characters’ purposes. The question now is: What do you do with your characters physically, when they perform their actions through speech? You can’t just have them standing and talking. That’s boring and false. But what will you do with their hands? What will you do with the rest of their bodies? Will they move from place to place or will they stand still?

Theater theory has given us actions. Conveniently, it’s also tackled this problem.

The following are the four physical attributes your character needs to have at any given time. They cover everything.

Physical attribute #1: The character’s personality

Look around you and you’ll see that each and every person stands in a unique way that stems for his or her personality. This is a physical attribute that appears almost regardless of what the person is feeling or saying or what mood he is in. Some scowl constantly, some have a bent back, some stand crookedly, some look tired at all times of the day. Every person is different.

On this canvas, we’ll start adding detail.

Physical attribute #2: The character’s mood

At any given time, any person or character will have a certain mood: happy, sad, surprised, hysterical, depressed, angry, and so on. You must add this layer to the first layer, and make sure that we are able to see this mood on your character.

Sometimes we can’t see moods on certain people. But there is always a reason for that. If the character is cold and stoic (physical attribute #1), then he wouldn’t show his mood. However, even stoic characters have moods which are relative to them. Sometimes these can be seen. Always be precise in what you show.

If you have a character who needs to hide what he is feeling, you have to check whether he is successful or not, is something slipping through the mask, or perhaps some of the effort is showing. Always be precise.

Physical attribute #3: The character’s action

As we’ve established in the previous two Story Design Tips columns, a character will always be performing some kind of action. We must see that action performed.

Think of yourself as the character. You know what the action is. Imagine what you would do to achieve it. You have to perform the action right now! What would you do? You must do something, because the character must do something to achieve his purpose.

Next, remember that the character also has a hindrance. How would that change the way you would perform that action? The second you convince yourself that you must perform the action, you’ll find the physical action that will be taken by the character.

There is an exception to showing the character’s actions, and that is showing the character’s reactions. Few people react and act at the same time. When being surprised, when being astonished, when being astounded, when being caught off guard, when listening rapt, when laughing, we stop performing actions and we simply react. The same thing is true for your characters.

Physical attribute #4: How the character would perform that action

Each character would perform the same action differently. One character would perform it by bullying, another would be impotently angry, another would be sneaky, another would be alluring and sexy, another would try to be friendly, another by crying, etc.

This also decides what a character does with his body and what he looks like when performing the action.

Examples

This is tough to get right all the time. Fortunately, it’s been done before by the best, and some of these examples are really good study tools.

Try looking at A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. Jump to any point in the middle, when more than one character is talking, and freeze the frame. You will actually be able to visually see all the elements mentioned above in each character in every frame.

Disney, back when he was alive, followed these rules to a tee in his animations. Check out the original Peter Pan, the dance number and the Magician’s Apprentice number from the 1940 movie Fantasia. Check out the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy cartoons which were created when Disney was alive. Freeze the frames, see how Disney made sure that all physical attributes were being fulfilled at all times.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a serious Tennessee Williams play, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, or the game you’re working on: these rules work, and they’ll help you when you design the character interaction scenes.

Join us next time…

It seems like we covered everything. But the truth is that sometimes a dialogue needs to be bad or you can’t create actions that seem interesting enough while delivering the text that you need to convey. There are a few solutions to that. Next time we’re going to see exactly what they are.（Source：gamasutra）