Project Improv II

Project Improv II will use improvisational acting techniques to improve on the believability of characters in games through the use of non-verbal communication. Last year, the original Project Improv explored the improvisational exercise of status and its potential when applied to the interactive game space. They presented their research and a working prototype at GDC 2005. This year, Project Improv II is taking the exercise of the “To Be” lists and creating a tool which will piece together animations from a common library to generate characteristics of a given “To Be” list. This allows a designer to select a “To Be” category for his character and instantly have available animations that will intelligently express that character. This allows for greater non-verbal communication without having to generate individual animations for each interaction. We will generate a demo illustrating the potential of our tool, as well as a whitepaper exploring the potential for non-verbal communication in games and how it can be improved using improvisational acting techniques.