(published in Computer Animation '95 Proceedings, IEEE, 1995)
Disney Meets Darwin
The Evolution of Funny Animated Figures
JJ Ventrella
Visible Language Workshop
MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
ventrell@media.mit.edu
Abstract
In this paper I discuss an approach to the generation of
entertaining animated motion, using a genetic algorithm.
Genetic algorithms have been used successfully to optimize
the physical behaviors of articulated stick figures and
other animated creatures for goal-directed behavior.
But an emphasis has not been put on the "optimization of
expressivity", whereby an animator inserts him/herself
into the optimizing loop to aesthetically influence the
evolution of motion behavior in such figures.
A technique for bringing both automatic and interactive
evolution together into one tool is discussed as a means
to bring evolutionary tools closer to the concerns of the
character animator, who may be just as interested in developing
amusing behaviors in a world of "Cartoon Laws", as in
simulating realistic animals in a world of Newtonian physics.
