Motion plays a crucial role in interactive applications, such as VR, AR, and video games. Characters move around, objects are manipulated or they move due to physical constraints, entities are animated, and the camera moves through the scene. Motion is currently studied in many different research areas, including graphics and animation, game technology, robotics, simulation, and computer vision, as well as physics, psychology, and urban studies. Cross-fertilization between these communities can considerably advance the state-of-the-art in the area.

The Motion, Interaction, and Games conference aims to bring together researchers from these fields to present their most recent results, initiate collaborations, and help advance this research area. The conference will feature regular paper sessions, poster presentations, and keynote speeches by a selection of internationally renowned speakers in all areas related to interactive systems and simulation. The conference includes entertaining cultural and social events that foster casual and friendly interactions among the participants.

NEWS

The review process will be dual anonymous, and papers should not have previously appeared in, or be currently submitted to, any other conference or journal. All papers will be reviewed by at least three (3) experts from the Program Committee. There is no rebuttal process.

Papers and supplementary material should be submitted using EasyChair: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=mig2024

Extended Journal Submissions

After the conference, all authors of accepted long papers are invited to submit revised and extended versions of their work to a special issue of the Computers & Graphics journal. Extended papers are required to contribute at least an additional 30%, including new results, additional experiments, and/or improvements to the original methodology. Extended versions will be evaluated based on their scientific contribution rather than page length.

Posters

We also invite submissions of poster papers on any of the topics of interest and related areas. Each submission should be 1-2 pages in length. Two types of work can be submitted directly for poster presentation:

• Work that has been published elsewhere but is of particular relevance to the MIG community can be submitted as a poster. This work and the venue in which it is published should be identified in the abstract;
• Work that is of interest to the MIG community but is not yet mature enough to appear as a paper.

Posters will not appear in the conference proceedings or the ACM Digital Library.

KEYNOTES

Lingjie Liu (University of Pennsylvania)

Title: High-Fidelity Human Pose Tracking and Realistic Motion Synthesis in Real-World Scenes

Abstract: In recent years, accurately tracking human poses in world coordinate space and synthesizing realistic and precisely controllable motions that seamlessly integrate into the digital reconstruction of real-world environments has become crucial for advancing applications in augmented reality, virtual reality, robotics, and more. In this talk, I will introduce our approach to high-precision human pose estimation within world coordinates, enabling accurate human motion reconstruction even in challenging scenarios from in-the-wild video data. Next, I will discuss our work on training human motion generative models that synthesize realistic motions with fine-grained semantic and/or trajectory controls. These approaches enable us to incorporate synthesized motions within digital reconstructions of real-world environments. Finally, I will address current limitations in the field and propose directions for future research to tackle these challenges, paving the way toward more immersive and interactive digital environments.

Bio:  Lingjie Liu is the Aravind K. Joshi Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where she leads the Penn Computer Graphics Lab. She is also a member of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) Lab. Previously, she was a Lise Meitner Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Max Planck Institute for Informatics. She received her Ph.D. degree at the University of Hong Kong in 2019. Her research interests are at the interface of Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, and AI, with a focus on Neural Scene Representations, Neural Rendering, Human Performance Modeling and Capture, and 3D Reconstruction

Moritz Bächer (Disney Research)

Title: Breathing Life into Disney’s Robotic Characters

Abstract: At Disney, we are redefining entertainment robotics. In this talk, I will first discuss model-based techniques that aid with the design and control of expressive robotic characters. At the core of these techniques is a differentiable representation of the robot’s time-varying state. In the second part of my talk, I will provide insight into our learning-based tools that enable the rapid design of freely-roaming robotic characters that can execute artist-specified animations or generated motions, using deep reinforcement learning. I will highlight how a combination of self-supervised learning and reinforcement learning results in realistic, human-level robot movement, enabled by extracting the structure in human motion.

Bio: Moritz Bächer is the Associate Lab Director of Disney’s Zurich-based robotics team, where he leads a strategic program focusing on the development of novel model- and learning-based tools for the design and control of believable robotic characters. His core expertise is the optimal design and control of both soft and rigid systems, using a combination of differentiable simulation and reinforcement learning. Prior to joining Disney, Moritz received his Ph.D. from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and his master’s degree from ETH Zurich.

Eakta Jain (University of Florida)

Title: Interacting with Non-Human Intelligent Agents

Abstract: Robots are entering our lives and workplaces as companions and teammates. Interacting with non-human intelligent agents will become a necessary component of both life and work. While this may seem unprecedented, in reality, humans have successfully collaborated with non-human agents before: humans and animals have partnered for millennia. What can we learn from human-animal interaction that informs human-robot interaction? This talk will present a first examination of human-horse interaction to inform human-robot interaction. I will discuss our findings based on three sources gathered over a year of fieldwork: observations, interviews and journal entries. I will also offer design guidelines based on these findings and opportunities for interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research in this open scientific frontier.

Bio: Dr. Eakta Jain is an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her PhD and MS degrees in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur. She has industry experience at Texas Instruments R&D labs, Disney Research Pittsburgh, and the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Dr. Jain is interested in the safety, privacy and security of data gathered for user modeling, particularly eye tracking data. Her areas of work include graphics and virtual reality, generation of avatars, human factors in the future of work and transportation. Her research has been nominated for multiple best paper awards and been funded through faculty research awards from Meta and Google, federal funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, US Department of Transportation, and state funding from the Florida Department of Transportation. Dr. Jain is an ACM Senior Member. She served as the Technical Program Chair for ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research (2020) and Applications and ACM/Eurographics Symposium on Applied Perception (2021). She serves on the ACM SAP Steering Committee (2022-2024) and as a Director on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (2022-2025).

PAPERS

All talks will be followed by a 5-minute audience Q&A.

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE

• Aline Normoyle,  Bryn Mawr College, USA
• Babis Koniaris, Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
• Ben Jones, University of Utah, USA
• Brandon Haworth, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Caroline Larboulette, Université de Bretagne, France
• Catherine Pelachaud, Université de Sorbonne, France
• Christos Mousas, Purdue University, USA
• Claudia Esteves, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico
• Damien Rohmer, Ecole Polytechnique de Paris, France
• Daniel Holden, Epic Games, Canada
• Donald Engel, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
• Edmond Ho, University of Glasgow, Scotland
• Eric Patterson, Clemson University, USA
• Floyd Chitalu, Independent
• Hang Ma, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada
• Hong Qin, Stony Brook University, USA
• James Gain, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• Julio Godoy, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA
• Katja Zibrek, Inria Rennes, France
• Kenny Erleben, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Lesley Istead, Carleton University, Canada
• Marie Andréia Formico Rodridues, University of Fortaleza, Brazil
• Matthias Teschner, University of Freiburg, Germany
• Michael Neff, University of California Davis, USA
• Mikhail Bessmeltsev, University of Montreal, Canada
• Miles Macklin, Nvidia, USA
• Mubbasir Kapadia, Roblox, USA
• Nuria Pelechano, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
• Panayiotis Charalambous, CYENS – Center of Excellence, Cyprus
• Pei Xu, Stanford University, USA
• Rachel McDonnell, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
• Rahul Narain, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
• Rinat Abdrashitov, Meta Reality Labs, Toronto, Canada
• Ronan Boulic, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Shinjiro Sueda, Texas A&M University, USA
• Snehasish Mukherjee, Roblox, USA
• Sophie Joerg, University of Bamberg, Germany
• Stephen Guy, University of Minnesota, USA
• Tianlu Mao, Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Tiberiu Popa, Concordia University, Quebec, Canada
• Xiaogang Jin, Zhejiang University, China
• Yin Yang, University of Utah, USA
• Yiorgos Chrysanthou,  University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• Yuting Ye, Meta, USA
• Zerrin Yumak, Utrecht University, Netherlands

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ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

CONFERENCE
CHAIRS

ADAM BARGTEIL

‎
‎

FUNDA DURUPINAR

PROGRAM
CHAIRS

SHELDON ANDREWS

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‎

SORAIA MUSSE

POSTER
CHAIR

ZACHARY FERGUSON

LOCAL
CHAIR

ERDEM MURAT