Thesis

(MIT Media Lab Master's Thesis)

Disney Meets Darwin

An Evolution-based Interface
for Exploration and Design
of Expressive Animated Behavior

Jeffrey Ventrella

Visible Language Workshop
Media Lab, MIT
May, 1994

Abstract

In this thesis I describe a computer animation system called the Character Evolution Tool. It was developed both as a prototype system for animators and graphic designers, and as a testbed for the applicability of genetic algorithms in the design process. Although the focus is primarily on physically based articulated characters, these are considered as only a sub-class in the class of all graphical objects which can exhibit expressive motion behavior, termed, "behavior objects." The Character Evolution Tool employs a genetic algorithm for the automatic evolution of goal-oriented behavior in animated graphics, with an overlay of interactive evolution. This overlay affords the user of the system the ability to encourage expressivity and communicative behaviors in the animated characters, as they evolve towards some otherwise pre-defined objective goal. Central to this system is an experimental technique for guiding the direction of evolution by way of a gesture drawn into the scene by the user. This gesture constitutes a novel approach to defining the genetic algorithm's objective fitness function, in that the characters are encouraged to emulate properties of the gestured motion, thereby assuming some of the expressive qualities that the user has specified.

Thesis Supervisor: Ronald MacNeil
Title: Principal Research Associate, Program in Media Arts and Sciences

This work was supported in part by Paws, Inc., USDOT, and NIF.