“Interfaces for Controlling Human Characters” Computer animations and virtual environments both require a controllable source of motion for their characters. Most of the currently available technologies require significant training and are not useful tools for casual users. Over the past few years, we have explored several different approaches to this problem. Each solution relies on the information about natural human motion inherent in a motion capture database. For example, the user can sketch an approximate path for an animated character which is then refined by searching a graph constructed from a motion database. We can also find a natural looking motion for a particular behavior based on sparse constraints from the user (foot contact locations and timing, for example) by optimizing in a low-dimensional, behavior-specific space found from motion capture. And finally, we have developed performance animation systems that use video input of the user to build a local model of the user's motion and reproduce it on an animated character For more information please visit: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/departmental/events/grace_hopper.shtml