9. A method for creating animated characters that convey emotion through their gestures, comprising the steps of: (a) generating scene transformations and images to be rendered as a function of scalar input parameters; (b) determining, for each respective gesture at each frame of animation, a weight of a set of parameters representative of the respective gesture, wherein the respective gesture is invoked if a weight of the respective gesture is a nonzero value; (c) calculating values over time for the set of parameters of each of the gestures; (d) performing a weighted sum of values for each of the set of parameter within each of the gestures for which the parameter is defined; (e) analyzing the transformation matrices to produce scalar variables; and (f) modifying the weight of the set of parameters representative of at least one gesture as a function of the scalar variables and determining the scalar input parameters for generating corresponding scene transformations and images.
9. A method for creating animated characters that convey emotion through their gestures, comprising the steps of: (a) generating scene transformations and images to be rendered as a function of scalar input parameters; (b) determining, for each respective gesture at each frame of animation, a weight of a set of parameters representative of the respective gesture, wherein the respective gesture is invoked if a weight of the respective gesture is a nonzero value; (c) calculating values over time for the set of parameters of each of the gestures; (d) performing a weighted sum of values for each of the set of parameter within each of the gestures for which the parameter is defined; (e) analyzing the transformation matrices to produce scalar variables; and (f) modifying the weight of the set of parameters representative of at least one gesture as a function of the scalar variables and determining the scalar input parameters for generating corresponding scene transformations and images. 12. A method for creating animated characters as in claim 9 wherein the weights of preselected gesture actions of two or more animated characters are determined as a function of at least one of a distance and an orientation between the characters.