Animation Innovations
By Scott Kirsner, April 8, 2002 The grade-school set doesn't tend to fire off many dyspeptic letters to the editor, so let's come right out and say it: Buzz Lightyear, Shrek, and all of the furry stars of ''Monsters, Inc.'' are essentially pretty stupid.
Not the animation. The animation is brilliant. It's just that every computer-animated character you've seen on the big screen is brainless. Without millions of specific instructions from animators, they wouldn't be able to rescue damsels from dragons or sing along to Randy Newman songs.
Two Boston area companies think they're on to the next big breakthrough in animation: characters with minds of their own. Newton-based Zoesis Studios and Ingeeni Studios of Cambridge have developed artificially-intelligent animated characters that live on the Web, and react realistically to what users do and say.
''This field is where Disney was back in the 1930s, when he moved from making short, gag-oriented films to making `Snow White,''' says Joseph Bates, president of Zoesis. ''Deeply interactive characters are somewhere in that early phase. After all, it took Pixar 15 years to get to `Toy Story.'''
The raison d'etre for these smart, interactive characters, thus far, is advertising. Zoesis has created a spunky, anthropomorphic ketchup bottle for the Heinz Web site, and McDonald's is testing the company's technology at Ronald.com, where kids can play games with an animated cheeseburger and french fry.
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''Interactive characters are going to be important to advertisers,'' says Michal Hlavac, CEO of Ingeeni Studios. ''Everyone's attention is so fragmented. We don't look at banners on the Web anymore, and once you've got TiVo, you don't watch TV commercials. We think we can solve some of those problems with intelligent, entertaining characters that people want to interact with again and again.''
This week, Hlavac is in Europe presenting to a supermarket chain that's interested in using Ingeeni's technology on its Web site, to build loyalty among its younger customers. The company's roots are in the MIT Media Lab, and Media Lab professor Cynthia Breazeal is on Ingeeni's board.
The characters are still rudimentary, and they sometimes react in ways that are unrealistic, but they can also be engaging. Mr. Bubb, a character created by Zoesis as a demo, can play a game of keep-the-balloon-aloft with a user; he grows increasingly downcast if you hog the balloon and don't give him a chance to bounce it.
Neither company will have an easy time raising money from traditional sources, but they're doing exciting work that could have a major impact on the entertainment industry. ''Little kids want to go on an adventure with Elmo, or Winnie the Pooh,'' says Bates. ''And people have been dreaming about the ability to step into a movie or a novel and interact with the characters for a long time. Our dream is to build the characters, make them intelligent, and eventually get to our own `Toy Story' or `Snow White.''
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