a. selecting an animated character a user to using in the animation;

b. recording one or more than one facial movements, body movements, or both facial and body movements from a user on a smart device or a recording device;

c. storing the real-time or recording to a storage for processing in real-time;

d. identifying the user's facial movements, body movements, or both facial and body movements;

e. analyzing the user's potential next facial movements, body movements, or both facial and body movements using a state machine; and

f. generating a complete full body animated character that interprets the one or more than one user's facial movement, body movement, or both facial and body movement input, wherein the animated character is pre-selected by the user;

wherein the state machine comprises instructions to turn real-time or recorded user expressions into a complex full body animation comprising a set of states, a set of transitions and a storage variable to remember the current state;

wherein the state machine is driven by a user's expression input, wherein a state occurs when a character is engaged in a particular kind of action at any given time;

wherein the character comprises limited state transitions that integrate restrictions on a next available state that the character can enter from its current state;

wherein the next state of the character is pre-animated and then applied to the character in real time using the next available state and the limited state transitions, by analyzing the user's expression input over time, the state machine determines the next probable character animations, thereby decreasing the amount of computational power required and the time needed to prepare the animation sequence since there are only a limited number of possible next motions for the character and the user; and

wherein the probable character animations are discreet actions ranging from a fraction of a second to several minutes, and preferably, less than two seconds in duration.