Improv: A System for Scripting Interactive Actors in Virtual Worlds

How to read this

Category

System: authoring interactive animated actors

Contributions

• An Animation Engine using procedural motion, action layering, and inverse kinematics
• A Behavior Engine with layered scripts and probabilistic decision rules for personality-consistent behavior
• An authoring approach letting non-programmers script real-time actors that respond to users and each other

Context

Sits in the procedural-animation and interactive-character lineage and is referenced as a basis for later parameterized motion work such as Verbs and Adverbs.

Correctness

Presented as a working authoring system; its strength is believable real-time interaction rather than physical accuracy, and the quality of results depends on author-supplied scripts and rules.

Clarity

Accessible and idea-driven; a first pass conveys the two-engine architecture, a second pass clarifies the scripting and layering details.

How to read it

First pass for the split between motion generation and behavior scripting; second pass if you care about how layers and probabilistic rules combine to give consistent personality.