From linear to interactive animation: how autonomous characters change the process and product of animating

ABSTRACT

There are significant differences between the art of animating for linear media such as film and video and the art of animating for interactive media such as computer and video games. In particular, these differences arise from the shift from linear characters to autonomous interactive characters. This article describes differences between linear animation and interactive animation in several areas of character design -- character intelligence, emotional expressiveness, navigation, transitions among animations, and multi-character interaction. These differences provide insight into the processes of both forms of animation and the final products that they create, and may provide a starting point for linear animators interested in becoming familiar with interactive animation.

REFERENCES

• 1: Kenji Amaya , Armin Bruderlin , Tom Calvert, Emotion from motion, Proceedings of the conference on Graphics interface '96, p.222-229, May 1996, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 2: Anderson, C. A. and Bushman, B. J. 2001. Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science 12 (2001), 353-359.
• 3: Assanie, M. 2002. Directable synthetic characters. In Proceedings of the 2002 AAAI Spring Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment.
• 4: Gene Ball , Dan Ling , David Kurlander , John Miller , David Pugh , Tim Skelly , Andy Stankosky , David Thiel , Maarten Van Dantzich , Trace Wax, Lifelike computer characters: the persona project at Microsoft, Software agents, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997
• 5: Bares, W. H. and Lester, J. C. 1997. Realtime generation of customized 3D animated explanations for knowledge-based learning environments. In Proceedings of the 14th AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
• 6: Joseph Bates , A. Bryan Loyall , W. Scott Reilly, An Architecture for Action, Emotion, and Social Behavior, Selected papers from the 4th European Workshop on on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World, Artificial Social Systems, p.55-68, July 29-31, 1992
• 7: Bendazzi, G. 1995. Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation: Indiana University Press, 1995.
• 8: Bruce M. Blumberg, Swamped! using plush toys to direct autonomous animated characters, ACM SIGGRAPH 98 Conference abstracts and applications, p.109, July 19-24, 1998, Orlando, Florida, United States [doi>10.1145/280953.281021]
• 9: Bruce Blumberg, (void*): a cast of characters, ACM SIGGRAPH 99 Conference abstracts and applications, p.169, August 08-13, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/311625.311965]
• 10: Bruce Blumberg , Marc Downie , Yuri Ivanov , Matt Berlin , Michael Patrick Johnson , Bill Tomlinson, Integrated learning for interactive synthetic characters, Proceedings of the 29th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, July 23-26, 2002, San Antonio, Texas
• 11: Cynthia L. Breazeal , Rodney Brooks, Sociable machines: expressive social exchange between humans and robots, 2000
• 12: David C. Brogan , Jessica K. Hodgins, Simulation level of detail for multiagent control, Proceedings of the first international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems: part 1, July 15-19, 2002, Bologna, Italy [doi>10.1145/544741.544789]
• 13: J. Cassell , T. Bickmore , M. Billinghurst , L. Campbell , K. Chang , H. Vilhjálmsson , H. Yan, Embodiment in conversational interfaces: Rea, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.520-527, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303150]
• 14: Damasio, A. 1994. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain., G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1994.
• 15: Rusel DeMaria , Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Second Edition, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2003
• 16: Downie, M. 2001. Behavior, animation, music: The music and movement of synthetic characters. S.M. thesis, Media Arts and Sciences. MIT, Cambridge, MA, 2001.
• 17: Steven Mark Drucker, Intelligent camera control for graphical environments, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1994
• 18: Ekman, P. 1992. An argument for basic emotions. In Basic Emotions, N. Stein and K. Oatley, eds. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hove, UK, 1992, 169-200.
• 19: Magy Seif El-Nasr , Ian Horswill, Automating Lighting Design for Interactive Entertainment, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), v.2 n.2, April 2004 [doi>10.1145/1008213.1008238]
• 20: ESA 2003. Key facts and research on video games and violence. http://www.theesa.com/keyfactsaug2003.htm, vol. 2003. Entertainment Software Association, 2003.
• 21: John Funge , Xiaoyuan Tu , Demetri Terzopoulos, Cognitive modeling: knowledge, reasoning and planning for intelligent characters, Proceedings of the 26th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.29-38, July 1999 [doi>10.1145/311535.311538]
• 22: Gaudiosi, J. 2003. Games, movies tie the knot. Wired Online (Dec. 10, 2003).
• 23: Jonathan Gratch , Jeff Rickel , Elisabeth André , Justine Cassell , Eric Petajan , Norman Badler, Creating Interactive Virtual Humans: Some Assembly Required, IEEE Intelligent Systems, v.17 n.4, p.54-63, July 2002 [doi>10.1109/MIS.2002.1024753 ]
• 24: Barbara Hayes-Roth , Erik Sincoff , Lee Brownston , Ruth Huard , Brian Lent, Directed improvisation with animated puppets, Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems, p.79-80, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223355.223438]
• 25: Li-wei He , Michael F. Cohen , David H. Salesin, The virtual cinematographer: a paradigm for automatic real-time camera control and directing, Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.217-224, August 1996 [doi>10.1145/237170.237259]
• 26: Jessica K. Hodgins , Nancy S. Pollard, Adapting simulated behaviors for new characters, Proceedings of the 24th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.153-162, August 1997 [doi>10.1145/258734.258822]
• 27: Isla, D., Burke, R., Downie, M., and Blumberg, B. 2001. A layered brain architecture for synthetic creatures. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI, Seattle, WA, 2001).
• 28: Michael Patrick Johnson , Andrew Wilson , Bruce Blumberg , Christopher Kline , Aaron Bobick, Sympathetic interfaces: using a plush toy to direct synthetic characters, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.152-158, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303028]
• 29: Jeff Kleiser, Digital stunt doubles: safety through numbers (panel), Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.493-494, August 1996 [doi>10.1145/237170.237293]
• 30: Kline, C. and Blumberg, B. 1999. The art and science of synthetic character design. In Proceedings of the AISB 1999 Symposium on AI and Creativity in Entertainment and Visual Art (Edinburgh, Scotland).
• 31: John Lasseter, Tricks to animating characters with a computer, ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, v.35 n.2, May 2001 [doi>10.1145/563693.563706]
• 32: Laybourne, K. 1998. The Animation Book: A Complete Guide to Animated Filmmaking-From Flip-Books to Sound Cartoons to 3-D Animation. Three Rivers Press, 1998.
• 33: C. Karen Liu , Zoran Popović, Synthesis of complex dynamic character motion from simple animations, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.21 n.3, July 2002
• 34: Marks, R. 2001. Enhanced reality: A new frontier for computer entertainment. In Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH 2001 Conference: Abstracts and Applications: Emerging Technologies.
• 35: Tim Marsh, Presence as experience: film informing ways of staying there, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, v.12 n.5, p.538-549, October 2003 [doi>10.1162/105474603322761324]
• 36: Mehrabian, A. and Russell, J. 1974. An Approach to Environmental Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1974.
• 37: Janet Horowitz Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998
• 38: Soraia R. Musse , Christian Babski , Tolga Capin , Daniel Thalmann, Crowd modelling in collaborative virtual environments, Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology, p.115-123, November 02-05, 1998, Taipei, Taiwan [doi>10.1145/293701.293716]
• 39: Ortony, A. 1988. On making believable emotional agents believable. In Emotions in Humans and Artifacts, R. Trappl et al., eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1988.
• 40: Ortony, A., Clore, G. L., and Collins, A. 1988. The Cognitive Structure of Emotions. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1988.
• 41: Ana Paiva , Isabel Machado , Rui Prada, Heroes, villians, magicians, …: dramatis personae in a virtual story creation environment, Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, p.129-136, January 14-17, 2001, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States [doi>10.1145/359784.360314]
• 42: Randy Pausch , Jon Snoddy , Robert Taylor , Scott Watson , Eric Haseltine, Disney's Aladdin: first steps toward storytelling in virtual reality, Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.193-203, August 1996 [doi>10.1145/237170.237257]
• 43: Pearce, C. 2004. Towards a game theory of game. In First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game. N. Wardrip-Fruin and P. Harrigan, eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.
• 44: Ken Perlin , Athomas Goldberg, Improv: a system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds, Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.205-216, August 1996 [doi>10.1145/237170.237258]
• 45: Rosalind W. Picard, Affective computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997
• 46: Reilly, W. S. N. 1996. Believable social and emotional agents. Ph.D dissertation, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, 1996.
• 47: Reynolds, C. W. 1999. Steering behaviors for autonomous characters. In Proceedings of the Game Developers Conference (San Jose, CA, 1999).
• 48: Charles Frederick Rose, III , Michael Cohen , Jack Gelfand, Verbs and adverbs: multidimensional motion interpolation using radial basis functions, 1999
• 49: Schaub, H., Zoll, C., and Aylett, R. 2003. Modelling empathy: The EU-project VICTEC (virtual information and communication technology with empathic characters). In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (Bamberg, Germany, 2003).
• 50: Roland Siegwart , Illah R. Nourbakhsh, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, Bradford Book, 2004
• 51: Paul Steed, Animating Real-Time Game Characters with Cdrom, Charles River Media, Inc., Rockland, MA, 2002
• 52: Daniel Thalmann , Hansrudi Noser , Zhiyong Huang, Autonomous Virtual Actors Based on Virtual Sensors, Creating Personalities for Synthetic Actors, Towards Autonomous Personality Agents, p.25-42, January 1997
• 53: Thomas, F. and Johnson, O. 1981. Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. Abbeville Press, New York, New York, 1981.
• 54: Bill Tomlinson , Bruce Blumberg , Delphine Nain, Expressive autonomous cinematography for interactive virtual environments, Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Autonomous agents, p.317-324, June 03-07, 2000, Barcelona, Spain [doi>10.1145/336595.337513]
• 55: Bill Tomlinson , Marc Downie , Matt Berlin , Jesse Gray , Derek Lyons , Jennie Cochran , Bruce Blumberg, Leashing the AlphaWolves: mixing user direction with autonomous emotion in a pack of semi-autonomous virtual characters, Proceedings of the 2002 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics symposium on Computer animation, July 21-22, 2002, San Antonio, Texas [doi>10.1145/545261.545263]
• 56: Tomlinson, B., Downie, M., Berlin, M., Gray, J., Wong, A., Burke, R., Isla, D., Ivanov, Y., Johnson, M. P., Lyons, D., Cochran, J., Yong, B., Stiehl, D., Soetjipto, R., Zaharopol, D., and Blumberg, B. 2001. AlphaWolf. In Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH 2001 Conference Abstracts and Applications. 2001.
• 57: Tomlinson, W. 1999. Interactivity and emotion through cinematography. Masters thesis, Media Arts and Sciences. MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
• 58: Munetoshi Unuma , Ken Anjyo , Ryozo Takeuchi, Fourier principles for emotion-based human figure animation, Proceedings of the 22nd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.91-96, September 1995 [doi>10.1145/218380.218419]
• 59: Juan D. Velásquez, When robots weep: emotional memories and decision-making, Proceedings of the fifteenth national/tenth conference on Artificial intelligence/Innovative applications of artificial intelligence, p.70-75, July 1998, Madison, Wisconsin, United States
• 60: Yi, M. 2004. Games of life. The News Journal (Jan. 20, 2004). http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/life/2004/01/20gamesoflife.html.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Animation

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.6 Methodology and Techniques
          Subjects: Interaction techniques

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
animation, games, interactivity, production