Proceedings of the Fourth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference Lightweight Procedural Animation with Believable Physical Interactions Ian Horswill Northwestern University, Departments of EECS and Radio/Television/Film 2133 Sheridan Road, Evanston IL 60208
[email protected] Abstract matics system. Posture control is performed by applying I describe a procedural animation system that uses tech- simulated forces and torques to the torso and pelvis. niques from behavior-based robot control, combined with a Interestingly, the use of a dynamic simulation actually minimalist physical simulation, to produce believable cha- simplifies control, allowing the use of relatively crude con- racter motions in a dynamic world. Although less realistic trol signals, which are then smoothed by the passive dy- than motion capture or full biomechanical simulation, the namics of the character body and body-environment inte- system produces compelling, responsive character behavior. raction; similar results have been found in both human and It is also fast, supports believable physical interactions be- robot motor control (Williamson, 2003). tween characters such as hugging, and makes it easy to au- Twig shows that surprisingly simple techniques can gen- thor new behaviors. erate believable2 motions and interactions. Much of the focus of this paper will be on ways in which Twig is able to Overview1 cheat to avoid doing complicated modeling or control, while still maintaining believability. This work is indebted Versatile procedural animation is a necessary component to the work of Jakobsen (Jakobsen, 2001) and Perlin (Per- for applications such as interactive drama, in which charac- lin, 1995, 2003; Perlin & Goldberg, 1996), both for their ters participate in complex interactions that cannot be pre- general approaches of using simple techniques to generate planned at authoring time.