alinen mocap

I currently work as an Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College.

Office: 200B Park Science Center

My current projects focus on analyzing motion from video and building multi-modal characters for video games. I primarily use a mix of experimental (e.g. user studies) and modeling approaches to understand the effect of different design decisions on non-player characters, avatars, and game design.

I completed a B.Sc. in computer science from McGill University. After college, I worked 10 years as a professional software engineer with specialties in networking, graphics, and behavioral modeling. I later completed a masters and PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania. During my PhD, I studied character and crowd animation, body language, and built a number of game-based experimental platforms. After my PhD, I worked several years as an AI and 3D game programmer, implementing projects for Kythera AI (Moon Collider LLC), Cesium, Monument Lab, and Clemson and New York University. I returned to academics full-time in 2018 and started work at Bryn Mawr in 2020. My research currently is looking at methods for analyzing motion from video, analyzing and creating procedural characters, and game-based learning and experimentation.

Here is my curriculum vitae. If you’d like to learn more about me, I was recently profiled for ACM SIGGRAPH.

Some of my publications are listed below. You can see an up-to-date list on Google Scholar.

Most of my work (research, hobbies and teaching!) is open-source and available on github.

> Courses taught

  • Senior Conference - Spring 2022

  • Systems Programming - Spring 2023 | Fall 2022 | Spring 2022

  • Discrete Math - Fall 2021

  • Computer Animation - Fall 2021 | Fall 2019 | Spring 2018 | Spring 2017

  • Computer Graphics - Spring 2023 | Spring 2021

  • Introduction to Computer Science - Fall 2022 | Spring 2021 | Spring 2020 | Fall 2018

  • Introduction to Computing - Fall 2020

  • Software Engineering - Spring 2019

> Research

> Publications, posters, talks

For an up-to-date list of publications, please see Google Scholar.

Selected work:

openbody 128

Open-Source Pipeline for Skeletal Modeling of Sign Language Utterances from 2D Video Sources
Aline Normoyle, Bruno Artacho, Andreas Savakis, Anne Senghas, Norman I. Badler, Corrine Occhino, Samuel J. Rothstein, Matthew W. G. Dye, 14th International Conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR 14 Stage Presentation), 2022
abstract | project page

HandMotions 128

How Important are Detailed Hand Motions for Communication for a Virtual Character?
Alex Adkins, Aline Normoyle, Lorraine Lin, Yu Sun, Yuting Ye, Massimiliano Di Luca, Sophie Jörg, ACM Transactions on Graphics (to appear)
Preprint

clusteringSmall

Bayesian Learning of Player Styles in Multiplayer Video Games
Aline Normoyle and Shane Jensen, working paper (arXiv), 2021
paper

escaperoom 128

Evaluating grasping visualizations and control modes in a VR game
Alex Adkins, Lorraine Lin, Aline Normoyle, Ryan Canales, Yuting Ye, Sophie Jörg, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP), 2021
paper | project page

pachacamac sbgames 128

An authoring tool to provide group and crowd animation using Natural Language scripts
Guido Mainardi, Aline Normoyle, Vinícius Cassol, Norman I. Badler, Soraia R. Musse, 20th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames), 2021
paper (preprint)

asl i3d 128

Quantifying sign-language movement kinematics from video
Aline Normoyle, Samuel J. Rothstein, Norman I. Badler, ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (i3D 2021), 2021
poster | video

Qbird 128

The Q*bird Level Designer: User-assisted procedural level design in augmented reality
Yi Fei Cheng and Aline Normoyle, Motion in Games, 2019
poster | abstract

Pachacamac Chow SPACES 128

Crowd and procession hypothesis testing for large-scale archaeological sites
Kristin Chow, Jeanette Nicewinter, Aline Normoyle, Clark L. Erickson, Norman I. Badler, MARCH Workshop, IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence And Virtual Reality (IEEE AIVR), 2019
paper (preprint)

GraspHand 128

Virtual Grasping Feedback and Virtual Hand Ownership
Ryan Canales, Aline Normoyle, Yu Sun, Yuting Ye, Massimiliano Di Luca, Sophie Jörg, Symposium of Applied Perception, 2019
paper

toyblocks burger 128

The Effect of Hand Size and Interaction Modality on the Virtual Hand Illusion
Lorraine Lin, Aline Normoyle, Alexandra Adkins, Yu Sun, Andrew Robb, Yuting Ye, Massimiliano Di Luca, Sophie Jörg, IEEE Virtual Reality (IEEEVR), 2019
project | paper | video |

CCrowds 128

Stochastic activity authoring with direct user control
Aline Normoyle, Maxim Likhachev and Alla Safonova, Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, 2014
paper | Foodcourt authoring demo | Zombie authoring demo | movie |

MiaLook 128

Evaluating perceived trust from procedurally animated gaze
Aline Normoyle, Jeremy B. Badler, Teresa Fan, Norman I. Badler, Vinícius J. Cassol, and Soraia R. Musse, Motion in Games, 2013
paper | supplement | presentation | movie

HappySAP13 128

The Effect of Posture and Dynamics on the Perception of Emotion
Aline Normoyle, Fannie Liu, Mubbasir Kapadia, Norman I. Badler, and Sophie Jörg, Symposium on Applied Perception (Won best student presentation), 2013
paper | presentation | dataset | stimuli examples

> Motion and Virtual Reality (MOVR) Lab (Park 200A)

In my lab, we study questions related to motion capture and analysis, virtual characters and video games.

Current Students

  • Jasmine Lei, Bryn Mawr College '23

    • Chaotic Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications in Computer Graphics (Spring 2023)

  • Judy Wang, Bryn Mawr College '23

    • Understanding homuncular flexibility with non-humanoid avatars in virtual reality (Spring 2023)

  • Foqia Shahid, Bryn Mawr College '23

    • Retargeting human motion to non-humanoid avatars in virtual reality (Spring 2023)

  • Neha Thumu, Haverford '24

    • Evaluating character controllers (Independent Study, Spring 2023)

    • Motion and navigation planning for digital characters (Independent Study, Fall 2022)

    • Understanding how character control and level design affect the player experience in video games (Summer Science Research Program (SSR) 2022)

  • David Dinh, Haverford '23

    • Parallel Computation: Simulating Smoke on the GPU, Haverford Senior Thesis, Fall 2022

  • Edward Zhang, University of Pennsylvania DMD '22, Summer 2022 REU at the University of Pennsylvania,

    • Collaborative Research: Multimethod Investigation of Articulatory and Perceptual Constraints on Natural Language Evolution.

  • Macintyre Sunde, Haverford '22

    • Shape Grammars for Architectural Reconstruction, Haverford Senior Thesis, Spring-Fall 2022

Click here to see previous student work!