A Temporal Scripting Language for Object-oriented Animation 1

Object orientation and concurrency are inherent to computer animation. Since the pieces of an animation can come from various media such as computer-generated imagery, video, and sound, the case for object orientation is all the stronger. However, languages for expressing the temporal coordination of animated objects have been slow in coming. We present such a language in this paper. Since the movements that an animated object can perform are also encapsulated as objects in our system, the scripting language can also be used to specify motion coordination. Such \motion objects" can be applied to any animated object. The syntax, semantics, and implementation of this language will be described, and we shall show how to specify device-independent computer animation.