Virtual agents for the production of linear animations

•This paper proposes a novel approach to the generation of character animations inspired by the research on virtual agents.•The application context is the production of linear (non interactive) animations.•The production pipeline is based on the mapping between the description of characters’ behavior and the animation data.•Given the high level goals, the system generates an action plan, translates it into animation commands and displays the scene.•The system was validated onto the production of a short movie, with the participation of a commercial company.

In the last decade, a number of techniques from the new media practices have contributed to innovate the traditional production of entertainment, through the modularization and the automation of a number of phases. This paper proposes a novel approach to the automatic generation of character animations that draws inspiration from the techniques for the construction of the virtual agents. The pipeline for the production of animated scenes is based on the mapping between the authorial description of characters’ behavior and the actual animation data. The application context is the production of linear (non interactive) animations. Given the specification of a set of high level goals, the implemented system generates the animation through the generation of a sequence of actions, the translation of actions into animation commands, the display of an animated scene through a 3D graphic engine. The pipeline and the system are validated onto the production of a short animated movie, with the participation of a commercial company, Virtual Reality and Multi Media Park S.p.a. (www.vrmmp.it).