Physics-Based Characters

To outsiders, it might seem natural—obvious, even—that you could use physics to make animated characters move in games and movies. The surprising fact is that physics-based characters have never been very successful in production. However, over the last few years, physicsbased character animation has been experiencing tremendous growth and a great deal of attention in computer graphics research. Why has physics fared so poorly until this recent resurgence, and will it ever play a significant role in commercial character animation?