The virtual raft project: a mobile interface for interacting with communities of autonomous characters

This paper presents a novel and intuitive paradigm for interacting with autonomous animated characters. This paradigm utilizes a mobile device to allow people to transport characters among different virtual environments. The central metaphor in this paradigm is that virtual space is like land and real space is like water for virtual characters. The tangible interface described here serves as a virtual raft with which people may carry characters across a sea of real space from one virtual island to another. By increasing participants' physical engagement with the autonomous characters, this interaction paradigm contributes to the believability of those characters. Author Keywords Tangible interfaces, Intuitive interfaces, Mobile devices, Autonomous characters, Interactive animation ACM Classification Keywords H5.2. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): User Interfaces; I.3.7 Three Dimensional Graphics and Realism: Animation

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Bill Tomlinson, Man Lok Yau, Jessica O'Connell, Ksatria Williams, So Yamaoka
• Keywords: Autonomous Animated Characters, Autonomous Characters, CHI 2005, Human Computer Interaction, Virtual Characters