NYU prof lets you play with emotion
Tired of video game characters that look and act like robots? New York University Professor Ken Perlin shares your pain. In a recent presentation at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, Perlin presented a "set of techniques whereby animated characters can become more emotionally expressive," as a Gamasutra article puts it.
The article gives a rather dry description of some of these techniques, but it also links to a set of experiments on Perlin's web site that bring his ideas to life. Besides being great, educational demonstrations, they're also tons of fun to play with. We especially like this responsive face constructor that lets you create very lifelike expressions by just playing with a few basic elements of the face. We also like this cute "living" heart that bounces around and plays with you when you click it, because we're big softies that way. What do you think developers can do to create more expressive, emotional game characters?
