“Interactive direction of virtual actors”

Professor Ken Perlin
Media Research Laboratory
Department of Computer Science
New York University

7:00pm Monday 20th November
Joly Theatre
Hamilton Building 4, Trinity College Dublin

For further details, please see the website at:
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/cosulliv/KenPerlin.html

Presentation Abstract

The Interaction, Simulation and Graphics (ISG) Lab in Trinity College Dublin is delighted to announce a seminar by Prof. Ken Perlin of New York University. In his lecture “Interactive direction of virtual actors”, he will describe recent work on developing ways to direct virtual actors in a scene in real-time, conveying not just movement but also mood, personality and intentionality, with the same rapidity and ease with which one might informally sketch out ideas with a colleague on a white board. He will show recent results in this area, and discuss directions for future work.

Speaker Biography

Ken Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University. He was founding director of the Media Research Laboratory and also directed the NYU Center for Advanced Technology from 1994-2004. His research interests include graphics, animation, user interfaces, science education and multimedia. In January 2004 he was the featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2002 he received the NYC Mayor’s award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU. In 1997 he won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. In 1991 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. Prof. Perlin received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University in 1986, and a B.A. in theoretical mathematics from Harvard University in 1979. He was Head of Software Development at R/GREENBERG Associates in New York, NY from 1984 through 1987. Prior to that, from 1979 to 1984, he was the System Architect for computer generated animation at Mathematical Applications Group, Inc., Elmsford, NY, where the first feature film he worked on was TRON. He has served on the Board of Directors of the New York chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Software Industry Association.