Conflict and Hesitancy in Virtual Actors

Internal conflict, in which a character is torn by opposing motivations, is central to drama. Actors portray such conflict in part by mimicking involuntary behaviors that occur as a result of such conflicts. In this paper, we examine the role of timing – pauses and hesitation, in particular – in internal conflict. We argue that virtual actors can be made more expressive if we can emulate the underlying structures of inhibition and conflict detection believed to operate in the human system. We discuss work in progress on this problem that uses the Twig procedural animation system.