Abstract
Modern computer graphics technology has enjoyed rapid development in recent years, attracting researchers and practitioners to explore a wide spectrum of applications ranging from computer-aided graphical design to artificial life and virtual reality. This paper is concerned with the animation-based entertainment use of computer graphics, i.e., to create digitally synthetic agents that can self-animate themselves, adapt to their virtual environments, and learn new behaviors to attain some specific goals. Here we propose a synthetic agent computational architecture called inter-threaded motif-based behavioral self-organization architecture, in which one motif acquires a conditioned association from the presently sensed state of the environment to the requirement of a desired motion as well as a plausible behavioral pattern to enable such a motion, whereas another computes the optimal parameters for the identified behavior in fulfilling the motion requirement. This architecture will enable animated behaviors to be automatically programmed based on the concurrent self-organization of individual motifs as well as their crisscrossing interactions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
E. André, T. Rist, and J. Müller, “Integrating reactive and scripted behaviors in a life-like presentation agent,” in K. P. Sycara and M. Wooldridge (eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'98), ACM Press; Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, 1998, pp. 261-268.
K. Arai, “Keyframe animation of articulated figures using partial dynamics,” in N. M. Thalmann and D. Thalmann (eds.), Models and Techniques in Computer Animation, Springer-Verlag: Tokyo, 1993, pp. 243-256.
J. Auslander, A. Fukunaga, H. Partovi, J. Christensen, L. Hsu, P. Reiss, A. Shuman, J. Marks, and J. T. Ngo, “Further experience with controller-based automatic motion synthesis for articulated figures,” ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 311-336, 1995.
J. C. Bezdek and N. R. Pal, “A note on self-organizing semantic maps,” IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 1029-1036, 1995.
B. M. Blumberg, “Action-selection in hamsterdam: Lessons from ethology,” in D. Cliff, P. Husbands, J. A. Meyer, and S. W. Wilson (eds.), From Animals To Animats 3, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour, Brighton, England, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1994.
B. M. Blumberg, “Go with the flow: Synthetic vision for autonomous animated creatures,” in W. Lewis Johnson (ed.), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'97), Marina del Rey, CA, ACM Press, pp. 538-539, 1997.
B. M. Blumberg, “Old tricks, new dogs: Ethology and interactive creatures,” MIT Media Lab, February 1997. Ph.D. Thesis.
B. M. Blumberg and T. A. Galyean, “Multi-level control for animated autonomous agents: Do the right thing ... oh, not that ...,” in Workshop Notes of the 1995 AAAI Symposium on Interactive Story System, 1995.
B. M. Blumberg and T. A. Galyean, “Multi-level direction of autonomous creatures for real-time virtual environments,” in Computer Graphics Proceedings (SIGGRAPH-95, Los Angeles), 1995.
B. M. Blumberg, P. M. Todd, and P. Maes, “No bad dogs: Ethological lessons for learning,” in Pattie Maes et al. (eds.), From Animals To Animats 4, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1996.
R. A. Brooks, “A robust layered control system for a mobile robot,” IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 14-23, 1986.
R. A. Brooks, “A robot that walks: Emergent behaviors from a carefully evolved network,” MIT AI Lab, 1989. Memo 1091.
R. A. Brooks, “Intelligence without reason,” MIT AI Lab, 1991. Memo 1293.
R. A. Brooks and L. A. Stein, “Building brains for bodies,” MIT AI Lab, 1993. Memo 1439.
J. Funge, “Making them behave: Cognitive models for computer animation,” University of Toronto, 1998. Ph.D. Thesis.
J. Funge, “AI for games and animation: A cognitive modeling approach,” A. K. Peters, 1999.
J. Funge, X. Tu, and D. Terzopoulos, “Cognitive modeling: Knowledge, reasoning and planning for intelligent characters,” in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH'99, Los Angeles, CA, August 11-13, 1999.
D. E. Goldberg, Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning, Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA, 1989.
J. K. Hodgins, W. L. Wooten, D. C. Brogan, and J. F. O'Brien, “Animating human athletes,” in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH'95, 1995.
J. Holland, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems, University of Michigan Press, 1975.
T. Kohonen, Self-organization and Associative Memory, Springer-Verlag: Berlin, 1989.
J. Liu and H. Qin, “C4: A software environment for modeling self-organizing behaviors of autonomous robots and groups,” Robotica, vol. 15, pp. 85-98, 1997.
J. Liu and H. Qin, “Behavioral self-organization in lifelike agents,” in K. P. Sycara and M. Wooldridge (eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'98), Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: ACM Press, pp. 254-260, 1998.
J. Liu and H. Qin, “Organizing synthetic agent behaviors based on a motif architecture,” in Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'99), Seattle, WA, May. 1-6 1999. ACM Press.
J. Liu, H. Qin, Y. Y. Tang, and Y. T. Wu, “Adaptation and learning in animated creatures,” in W. Lewis Johnson (ed.), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'97), Marina del Rey, CA, ACM Press, 1997.
S. Loizidou and G. J. Clapworthy, “Legged locomotion using HIDDS,” in N. M. Thalmann and D. Thalmann (eds.), Models and Techniques in Computer Animation, Springer-Verlag, Tokyo, pp. 257-269. 1993.
P. Maes, “How to do the right thing,” Connection Science Journal, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 291-323, 1989.
P. Maes, “A bottom-up mechanism for behavior selection in an artificial creature,” in J. A. Meyer and S. Wilson (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1991.
P. Maes, “Modeling adaptive autonomous agents,” Artificial Life, vol. 1, no. 1-2, 1994.
P. Maes, “Artificial life meets entertainment: Interacting with lifelike autonomous agents,” Special Issue on New Horizons of Commercial and Industrial AI, vol. 38, no. 11, pp. 108-114, 1995.
P. Maes, T. Darrell, B. Blumberg, and A. Pentland, “The alive system: Wireless, full-body interaction with autonomous agents,” in B. Huberman (ed.), A Special Issue on Multimedia and Multisensory Virtual Worlds, ACM Multimedia Systems, ACM Press: North-Holland, 1996, pp. 28-39.
K. Perlin and A. Goldberg, “Improv: A system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds,” Computer Graphics, vol. 29, no. 3, 1996.
C. A. Pickover, Computers, Pattern, Chaos and Beauty, St. Martin's Press: New York, NY, 1990.
H. Ritter, T. Martinetz, and K. Schulten, Neural Computation and Self-Organizing Maps: An Introduction. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA, 1992.
C. F. Rose, M. Cohen, and B. Bodenheimer, “Verbs and adverbs: Multidimensional motion interpolation,” IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications, vol. 18, no. 5, 1998.
K. Sims, “Evolving 3D morphology and behavior by competition,” in R. A. Brooks and P. Maes (eds.), Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 28-39.
K. Sims, “Evolving virtual creatures,” in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH-1994: Computer Graphics, Annual Conference Series, ACM Press: New York, NY, 1994, pp. 15-24.
A. Sloman, “What sort of architecture is required for a human-like agent?” in M. Wooldridge and A. Rao (eds.), Foundations of Rational Agency. Kluwer Academic, 1997.
A. Sloman and B. Logan, “Architectures and tools for human-like agents,” in Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Modeling, Nottingham, 1998.
T. Kohonen, “Self-organized formation of topologically correct feature maps,” Bio. Cybern, vol. 43, pp. 59-69, 1982.
D. Terzopoulos, T. Rabie, and R. Grzeszczuk, “Perception and learning in artificial animals,” in C. G. Langton and K. Shimohara (eds.), Artificial Life V: Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Nara, Japan, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1996, pp. 313-320.
D. Terzopoulos, X. Tu, and R. Grzeszczuk, “Artificial fishes with autonomous locomotion, perception, behavior, and learning in a simulated physical world,” in R. A. Brooks and P. Maes (eds.), Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 17-27.
N. Vasilonikolidakis and G. J. Clapworthy, “Design of realisticgaits for the purpose of animation,” in N. M. Thalmann and D. Thalmann (eds.), Computer Animation '91, Springer-Verlag: Tokyo, 1991, pp. 101-114.
J. Ventrella, “Explorations in the emergence of morphology and locomotion behavior in animated characters,” in R. A. Brooks and P. Maes (eds.), Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1994, pp. 436-441.
H. H. Vilhjálmsson and J. Cassell, “BodyChat: Autonomous communicative behaviors in avatars,” in K. P. Sycara and M. Wooldridge (eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents'98), Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: ACM Press, 1998, pp. 269-276.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, J., Qin, H. Behavioral Self-Organization in Lifelike Synthetic Agents. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 5, 397–428 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019656327617
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019656327617