To Gesture or Not to Gesture: What is the Question?

Computer synthesized characters are expected to make appropriate face, limb, and body gestures during communicative acts. We focus on non-facial movements and try to elucidate what is intended with the notions of \gesture" and \naturalness". We argue that looking only at the psychological notion of gesture and gesture type is insucient to capture movement qualities needed by an animated character. Movement observation science, specically Laban Movement Analysis and its Eort-Shape dimensions with motion phrasing provide essential gesture components. We assert that the expression of movement qualities from the Eort dimensions are needed to make a naturally crystallize out of abstract movements. Finally, we point out that non-facial gestures must involve the rest of the body to appear natural and convincing. A system called EMOTE has been implemented which applies parameterized Eort and Shape qualities to movements and thereby forms improved synthetic gestures. 1 The Probl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: CGI
• Authors: Norman I. Badler, Monica Costa, Liwei Zhao, Diane M. Chi
• Keywords: CGI 2000, Computer Graphics, Gestures, Movement Qualities, Non-facial Movements