Archive for November, 2005
Hansons Albert Hubo?
November 22nd, 2005Lionhead “The Movies”
November 17th, 2005
Just reading a post about “The Movies” by UK game studio “Lionhead“. This has been eagerly anticipated for some time by the Machinima crowd for its in game movie creation abilities.
It seems many people are taking up the chance to create their own mini movies but one thorough review was very unimpressed, » Read more: Lionhead “The Movies”
“Albert Hubo”, Einstein reanimated
November 17th, 2005
Looks like KAISTs KH3 robot has been updated (KH4 I assume?) and has had an “expressive” head added. The head is a beautifully crafted model of Albert Einstein (in the craft sense of the word rather than the similarity sense). Apparently it has facial gestures with artificial muscle technology, unfortuately I have not been able to find any movies to see the extent of the gestures possible, however the three images in this post show 2 different expressions and what looks like changes in head pitch. » Read more: “Albert Hubo”, Einstein reanimated
Bio Graphic is bought
November 14th, 2005
AI Behavior Toolkit maker Bio Graphic was in the news having just completed its sale to Simulation technology company Engenuity for around $2.75 million including assumed debt of around $1.5 million. Bio Graphic has always had a presence in the simulation market although I believe its heart was always in the game/animation space. Like many companies, simulation work pays the bills but like the game / animation business it is mainly custom work and special projects that dont make for a very steady business. By the size of their debt I would not be suprised if cash was getting tight which facilitated the sale? Still a look at their web site shows that they are getting some pretty impressive projects using AI Implant on the movie fx side of the business. They demoed their technology to me a while back, it is very slick with a good interface. I hope this move allows them to move their system forward to greater success and market penetration.
More bad science writing…
November 8th, 2005Some of you may have seen an article in wired about emotion in games “Can a game make you cry?” citing a research report entitled “Videogames: The Impact of Emotion”. What a poorly researched, sloppy piece of science journalism this is. Add this to the litany of poor science journalism. The thrust of the piece is that “gamers” appreciate emotion in games but it is somewhat misleading in this respect. What we understand by the premise is that game players appreciate more than just killing but also appreciate emotional interaction, this is not what the survey really says. It merely points out the obvious that games give players a sense of competive achievement along with doses of fear and adreneline. What it also fails to mention is that the author, Bowen Research is an agency that specializes exclusively on “Young male consumers, from boys to young adults” so the Wired article reference to “gamers” in fact only represents a sub set of that category.
The research article itself seems trivial at best but can only be read in its entirety upon payment of almost $1000! Im in the wrong business! Perhaps the full report offers some deeper insights, I wonder if the Wired reporter even read it?
Environmental Emotion
November 8th, 2005
Interesting article on the wires recently from Phillips Research who we have mentioned before a couple of times. Looks like they are developing some very cool applications. They are pursuing a concept called “Ambiant Intelligence” and their latest offering is something called “amBex” and is a system aimed at controlling, from applications such as games, the physical ambiant surroundings of the user. For example the lighting could be altered to match the game scene. Using 3 color LED lighting a whole spectrum of lighting events can be created. They also mention controlling fans and heaters etc but I think the most practical and simple application is lighting.
Interestingly I have been talking to a number of game companies recently who have mentioned the idea of using our technology to control the games environment dynamically and to fit the players mood etc, ie. changing the weather to fit the mood dynamically. This could be used to control this amBex system very nicely. Interesting.
Help Wanted
November 5th, 2005On a continuing basis I am looking for a small number of Gurus to help in the expansion of Emotion AI. If you have seen what we do here you will see that our requirements are both broad and very deep, hence the need for Guru level people. This will be a long term search but if you would like to know more and have a particular interest in any of our fields (Computational Neuroscience, real time gesture and behavior simulation, associated graphics technologies, toolkit plug in development etc) drop me a line.
OC3 and Unreal
November 5th, 2005OC3 Entertainment have announced that their real time facial animation system is being integrated and bundled with the Unreal 3 engine. Nice work guys. I hope that means more opportunities for real time emotional characters and not just real time grimaces 
Imagineering
November 5th, 2005
Disney has a new interactive attraction that seems to include real time interactivity with the character *Crush* from the “Finding Nemo” movie (the surfer dude turtle). Looks like a very nice set up they have and must be using audience tracking picking up faces, actions and even cloth colors. This information is used to allow the character to interact with audience members in terms of animated actions and conversation.
