An important problem in the animation of human-like agents is self col
lision. While the problem of adjacent segment intersection can often b
e eliminated by explicitly limiting joint angles, avoiding collisions
of nonadjacent segments is much more difficult when the response time
is constrained in an interactive environment. Instead of using the tra
ditional motion planning approach, an efficient way to handle obstacle
avoidance through collision response is proposed. This reactive behav
iour is driven by inputs from the agent's simulated sensors which dete
ct obstacles. A self-collision response system has been implemented fo
llowing this approach. Its performance demonstrates that collision avo
idance can be performed automatically in an interactive computer anima
tion environment. This approach has also been successfully extended to
handle collisions of agents with environment obstacles.