EVENT DETAILS

Vizij: Expressive Robot Faces Workshop and Tutorial at HRI 2026

What is Vizij?

Vizij is a community-driven, open-source software platform/ecosystem for designing, animating, and deploying rendered robot faces (“visages”) developed to address existing fragmentation in rendered robot face infrastructure. Vizij is currently used and developed by Semio Community, Quori, and Peerbots, with ongoing community efforts to support for other popular robot platforms.

Workshop + Tutorial @ HRI 2026

As Vizij is an open source platform and ecosystem, we are actively expanding our community, including users, contributors, and partners. HRI is the premier venue for researchers with expertise on effective and expressive social robot interaction via the face. We are hosting a workshop and tutorial hybrid (the first of its kind) in which we will (1) engage with and learn from the HRI research community, and (2) give back through a hands-on tutorial of the Vizij platform tailored to HRI researchers. The morning, half-day workshop component gathers experts on HRI particularly interested in robot facial animation and expression (e.g., gaze, emotion, and lip synchronization). The afternoon, half-day tutorial component is specifically designed for HRI researchers interested in simplifying, speeding up, and easing replicability of their studies that involve robot faces.

Who should attend?

We designed the tutorial for a broad audience from industry and academia and for both junior PhD students as well as advisors / Principal Investigators (PIs). The tutorial is for those who want their robot faces to “just work” as well as those who want to fully customize a robot face to run user studies evaluating those customizations.

Workshop topics

We are inviting researchers to submit short (2-4 pages) or full (6-8 pages) papers discussing:

the role, rationale, and intention for robot faces;
emotion and gaze in human-robot interaction (HRI);
robot and virtual character animation for HRI; or
experiences with expressive robot faces in practice.

Please follow the HRI conference submission formatting guidelines in creating your papers. (Anonymization of submissions is optional.) Please make your submissions at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=vizijhri2026.

Key Workshop Dates:

Participant Support Request Deadline: ~~January 21st, 2026~~ Extended to February 12th, 2026
Early Paper Submission Deadline: ~~January 21st, 2026~~
Early Paper Notification Date: ~~January 28th, 2026~~
Early Bird Conference Registration Deadline: Jan 31st 2026
Paper Submission Deadline: February 12th, 2026
Paper Notification Date: February 19th, 2026

Tutorial Activities

Following the half-day workshop portion of the full-day session, we are inviting participants to learn to design, animate, and deploy rendered robot faces in a hands-on tutorial. Tutorial activities will include:

Getting started with Face Design & Control
1. Hello Face: getting started importing, exporting, and controlling a robot face.
2. Renderer Data Model: The Vizij renderer, underlying data, and how that data can be modified
3. Rigging: Standard and custom control rigs in Vizij
Face Animation, Integration, and Deployment
1. Now we are talking: integrating a robot face with a real time conversation engine.
2. Animations: defining, saving, and loading animations.
3. Deployment: Going from your computer to your robot.

We plan to tailor activities to attendees. Please fill out this survey to let us know about your interest in the tutorial and what robot(s) you work with. We may be able to provide you with a robot at the tutorial.

Tutorial Preparation (optional)

This section is pending. We will provide tutorial resources ahead of the tutorial for those interested in getting started early. This will be optional and participants do not need to do any installation or preparation ahead of the tutorial to participate aside from bringing a laptop.

Participant Support

Participant support is available (up to $1,500 per eligible participant) thanks to the NSF-funded Quori project! We will be tailoring activities to attendees’ robot(s) and research interests. Please complete this form by January 21st, 2026 to inform the organizing team about your interest in robot faces and/or request participant support.