A Rapid Prototyping Environment for Character Behavior

This paper describes a system that greatly simplifies the task of authoring new behaviors for virtual characters, including physical interactions between characters and other characters or objects. The system in implemented within Twig and allows users to interactively generate and test procedural controllers for characters, as well as triggering mechanisms and arbitration mechanisms for behaviors. It allows users to quickly add new behaviors, or reparameterize existing behaviors, without access to a motion capture studio or professional animators, making it a natural choice for AI researchers, particularly those operating within a university environment. Moreover, it allows a level of continuous parameterization that would be difficult to achieve with traditional animation techniques based on state machines and blending. Copyright © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.