Clemson University

Visual / Human-Centered Computing Seminar with guest speakers Victor Zordan, University of California-Riverside, and Michael Neff, University of California-Davis

"Coordinated, Responsive Physics-Based Character Animation” presented by Victor Zordan, University of California, Riverside

Abstract:  Physical modeling for animated characters continues to grow both as a research topic and in its usage for commercial applications. This talk will cover a set of techniques for controlling and combining physics based character simulation with human motion capture data. The ultimate goal of these techniques is to create coordinated, responsive characters that remain natural looking under a variety of unexpected conditions. Two themes that will be discussed include the benefit of whole-body rotation in controlling behavior as well as the employment of modal analysis with physics for animated characters.

Bio: Victor Zordan is an associate professor at University of

California Riverside.  His research interests center around games and special effects, especially animation for characters with an emphasis on controllability.  Victor has developed a host of techniques that merge motion capture and dynamic simulation to create flexible and responsive behavior for humanoids but his research interest spans games, graphics, and animation with a strong bias in physics modeling and interfaces.

AND

"Well, You're Pretty Outgoing: Modeling Personality Generation in Virtual Characters” presented by Michael Neff, University of California, Davis

Abstract:  People are enjoyable to interact with, in part, because of the richness of their personalities.  We would like our virtual characters, and the interactions people have with them, to share this richness.  In this talk, I will review our work on generating movement and text to convey particular personality traits for conversational characters.  We use the Big Five model of personality and focus on two of the traits, Extraversion and Emotional Stability, showing how findings from the psychology literature can be adapted to create characters whose movement and dialogue varies along these traits.

Bio:  Michael Neff is an associate professor in Computer Science and Cinema & Technocultural Studies at the University of California, Davis where he directs the Motion Lab, an interdisciplinary research effort in character animation and embodied input. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is also a Certified Laban Movement Analyst. His interests include character animation tools, especially modeling expressive movement, physics-based animation, gesture and applying performing arts knowledge to animation. He received an NSF CAREER Award, the Alain Fournier Award for his dissertation, a best paper award from Intelligent Virtual Agents and the Isadora Duncan Award for Visual Design.  He also currently serves as co-Director for the Program in Cinema and Technocultural Studies.

 

Friday, August 22, 2014 at 2:30pm to 3:30pm

McAdams Hall, 119

Notice of Non-Discrimination

Event Type

Lectures / Seminars / Speakers, Seminars

Target Audience

Students, Faculty

Departments

College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, School of Computing, Research Seminars

Website

http://www.cs.clemson.edu/vcadmin/vcs...

Contact Name:

Dida Weeks

Contact Phone:

6565577

Contact Email:

dpa@clemson.edu

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