Meaningful Motion
Means not ends:  Motion qualities carry meaningful signals''

Professor Norm Badler
University of Pennsylvania

The last few years have seen great maturation in understanding how to use
computer graphics technology to portray 3D embodied [human] virtual
characters.  Unlike the off-line, animator-intensive methods used in the
special effects industry, real-time embodied agents are expected to 
exist and interact with us "live".  They can be represent other people or 
function in a virtual environment as autonomous helpers, teammates, or tutors enabling
novel interactive educational and training applications. Building adequate
computational models of human behavior is challenging because we need to
deconstruct the intuitive understanding of movement that expert animators --
as well as regular people -- possess.  Our EMOTE system parameterizes body
posture and arm gestures using movement observation principles to obtain a
representational basis for character believability, personality, and affect.
EMOTE adjusts the performance (synthesis) of a motion so that specific
character attitudes may be observed.  EMOTE can also be used to analyze
movement to determine its qualities, and hence give insight into the 
internal state of the performer.