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Me, My Character and the Others 201
formances or even write (using a special tool also developed within the NIMIS
project) different stories based on the same performance.
Figure 24.2. Teatrix: On Stage Option
4. Controlling the Characters in Teatrix
In the acting phase each child has a character to control. Characters in
Teatrix are not simply controlled animations in a 3D world. They also have
roles (villain, hero, etc), which define their function in the story (for example,
a villain must “harm the hero”, a hero must “rescue the victim”, etc). So, a
character must be seen as a conjunction of two different concepts: the actor
and the role.An actor is the physical representation or appearance of a char-
acter. In Teatrix we provide a cast that contains a witch, a boy, a girl, a fair,
a wolf and an old lady. More actors can be added provided that the appro-
priate animations are built into the system. As for the roles, we relied on the
analysis done by Propp [7] on folktales, which led us to the following roles:
