1/24 Directing Physically Based Interactions

We saw some examples today of a user moving the mouse to direct a character's head (for the lamp) or center of mass (for the starfish) in order to make it move. I'm sure some artists might not like this because it doesn't allow complete control of the character. The directions given from the mouse are always secondary to physical constraints, which can help the character to look more believable, but sometimes, especially with "cartoony" characters, physical constraints aren't what we want. However, I think for the average user this system is intuitive. Especially with the lamp, it reminded me of something you might see on an iPhone game or something - moving the character through an obstacle course by directing it with your finger on the screen. For most people, I think this system would be pretty easy to use. Also, people tend to be pretty forgiving of the graphics in games. Things don't look perfectly realistic in games, and people know this. For movies, though, the standards are definitely higher. In a game, we have to pay attention to strategy, whereas in a movie our attention isn't deviated away from the visuals as much. I think that's why some artists might be critical of the center-of-mass method of directing the characters. Artists want complete control of the look of their characters, so this system is a good starting point for animation but I don't think it can work at this point as the entire means of animating a character.