Michael Nixon
Michael Nixon defend his Ph.D. at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology (Simon Fraser University)in the iVizLab with his work on making virtual characters more believable in interactive narrative and social contexts through the use of better cognitive models and procedurally-animated non-verbal behaviour. He was also interested in how new kinds of natural user interfaces can enable novel game mechanics. Michael defended his M.Sc. in 2009, which investigated the use of Delsarte’s movement principles for animating believable characters.
Research interests:
– AI-driven 3D character systems
– Cognitive modeling of nonverbal behaviour (e.g. social eye gaze).
– Game studies
Contact: michael_nixon@sfu.ca
Position: Professor, University of Toronto Missisauga
Research
Our affective real-time 3D AI virtual human project with face emotion recognition, movement recognition and full AI talking, gesture and reasoning.
Publications
An Eye Gaze Model for Controlling the Display of Social Status in Believable Virtual Humans
Conference Proceedings: IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) , 2018
Saliency-Based Artistic Abstraction With Deep Learning and Regression Trees
Journal Article: Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, 2017
Volume 61, Issue 6.
Society for Imaging Science and Technology
m+m: A novel Middleware for Distributed, Movement based Interactive Multimedia Systems
Conference Proceedings: 3rd International Symposium on Movement and Computing, July 2016
Article No. 21
Thessaloniki, GA, Greece
ACM
The Role of Micronarrative in the Design and Experience of Digital Games
Conference Proceedings: Digital Games Research Association Conference (DIGRA), 2013
pp. 161-197
Atlanta, Georgia, USA