Controlling personality manifestations by objects in a computer-assisted animation environment

A system for managing personality manifestations by one or more personality objects which encapsulate the personality traits and behaviors of proprietary characters within a computer-based animation system, comprising:

• a computer system having a display device and a memory;
• a scene on the computer system, at least part of the scene displayed on the display device based on data in the memory;
• and
• personality manifestation controlling means for controlling the manifestation of character personality by at least one personality object with respect to the scene by communication between a controller object and the personality object, whereby the system prevents at least some unauthorized manipulations of proprietary animated characters which could otherwise damage the public image or commercial prospects of the characters' owners.

A computer storage medium having a configuration that represents data and instructions which will cause at least a portion of a computer system to perform method steps for controlling a personality object, the method steps comprising the steps of:

• providing a first object, the first object being a controller object in that it has semantic information about the scene or about other objects in the scene, the controller object having a controller object identifier;
• providing a second object, the second object being a personality object in that it encapsulates personality traits or behaviors of a character, the personality object having a personality object identifier;
• establishing a communication channel between the personality object and the controller object;
• exchanging the identifiers across the communication channel;
• and
• determining personality manifestations in the form of personality object actions at least in part on the basis of the exchanged identifiers, the character personality trait or behavior encapsulated in the personality object, and semantic information of the controller object.