Improvisational animation

It has long been a goal of the animated agent community to bring embodied agent technologies out of the research labs and into the hands of authors and designers who may put them to practical use. Improv is a set of tools and techniques developed at NYU which make it possible to create applications involving animated agents that behave, interact and respond to user input in ways that convey mood and emotion. These tools can be used without prior experience in computer programming, cognitive science or ergonomic simulation, while still allowing creation of animated agents who exhibit behavior which has the lifelike, somewhat unpredictable feel of human behavior, yet remains consistent with a character's personality and defined goals. The goal of the Improv project is to make improvisational animation accessible to experts with minimal expertise in animation and dramatic performance, and to enable researchers and educators to exploit these technologies without relying on expensive production efforts. These are clearly two of the most important steps toward the wide-scale acceptance and use of animated agents for education and training, social simulation and collaborative environments.