Michael Neff

Research: My main research focus is on modeling human movement, especially aspects of movement related to expressiveness, personality and style. In recent years, I have been particularly interested in modeling gesture. The applications of this work include tools for character animation, motion models for gesture systems and studies of human communication. The work draws its intellectual basis from a range of fields, including computer science, mathematics, robotics, psychology, biomechanics and the performing arts. I have built performance animation systems that allow real-time authoring of animation, offline systems that allow direct control of the style of character motion, and autonomous systems that generate animated output based on the text a character is to speak. Techniques employed include physical simulation, procedural animation and data-driven modeling. I am also interested in interaction techniques, particularly those that involve 3D movements of the whole body.
Webpage: http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~neff/
Email: neff@cs.ucdavis.edu