Evolutionary tool for the incremental design of controllers for collective behaviors

Abstract

In this paper we present a software tool for the automatic design of collective behaviors in animated feature films. The most successful existing commercial solutions used in animation studios require an explicit knowledge by the designer of the AI or other techniques and involve the hand design of many parameters. Our main motivation consists in developing a design tool that permits creating the behaviors of the characters from a high level perspective, using general concepts related to the final desired objectives, and to judge these behaviors from a visual point of view, thus abstracting the designer from the computational techniques in the system core. In this case, a bioinspired approach has been followed consisting in the incremental generation of controllers for simulated agents using evolution. An example of flocking activity is created with the system. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.