scholarly journals The Virtual Human Platform: Simplifying the Use of Virtual Characters

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Knöpfle ◽  
Yvonne Jung
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Character Animation ◽  
Virtual Human ◽  
Virtual Characters

In this paper, we will explain our approach to create and animate virtual characters for real-time rendering applications in an easy and intuitive way. Furthermore we show a way how to develop interactive storylines for such real-time environments involving the created characters. We outline useful extensions for character animation based on the VRML97 and X3D standards and describe how to incorporate commercial tools for an optimized workflow. These results were developed within the Virtual Human project. An overview of the project is included in this paper

scholarly journals Multi-party Conversation for Mixed Reality

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Löckelt ◽  
Norbert Pfleger ◽  
Norbert Reithinger
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Nonverbal Behavior ◽  
Mixed Reality ◽  
Autonomous Control ◽  
Virtual Human ◽  
Time Requirement ◽  
Reactive Processing ◽  
User Interactions ◽  
Virtual Characters ◽  
Integrated Processing

The interactive scenarios realized in the two prototypes of Virtual Human require an approach that allows humans and virtual characters to interact naturally and flexibly. In this article we present how the autonomous control of the virtual characters and the interpretation of user interactions is realized in the Conversational Dialogue Engine (CDE) framework. For each virtual and real interlocutor one CDE is responsible for dialogue processing. We will introduce the knowledge needed for the CDE-approach and present the modules of a CDE. The real-time requirement resulted in the integrated processing of deliberative and reactive processing, which is needed, e.g., to generate an appropriate nonverbal behavior of virtual characters.

scholarly journals Avatar Locomotion in Crowd Simulation

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Pelechano ◽  
Bernhard Spanlang ◽  
Alejandro Beacco
Keyword(s):  
Path Planning ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Collision Avoidance ◽  
Crowd Simulation ◽  
Character Animation ◽  
Upper Body ◽  
Virtual Characters ◽  
Continuous Space ◽  
Visual Results

This paper presents an Animation Planning Mediator (APM) designed to synthesize animations efficiently for virtual characters in real time crowd simulation. From a set of animation clips, the APM selects the most appropriate and modifies the skeletal configuration of each character to satisfy desired constraints (e.g. eliminating foot-sliding or restricting upper body torsion), while still providing natural looking animations. We use a hardware accelerated character animation library to blend animations increasing the number of possible locomotion types. The APM allows the crowd simulation module to maintain control of path planning, collision avoidance and response. A key advantage of our approach is that the APM can be integrated with any crowd simulator working in continuous space. We show visual results achieved in real time for several hundreds of agents, as well as the quantitative ac-curacy.

scholarly journals Affect and Metaphor Sensing in Virtual Drama

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Zhang ◽  
John Barnden
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Intelligent Agent ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Social Software ◽  
Educational Gaming ◽  
Virtual Characters ◽  
Metaphorical Language

We report our developments on metaphor and affect sensing for several metaphorical language phenomena including affects as external entities metaphor, food metaphor, animal metaphor, size metaphor, and anger metaphor. The metaphor and affect sensing component has been embedded in a conversational intelligent agent interacting with human users under loose scenarios. Evaluation for the detection of several metaphorical language phenomena and affect is provided. Our paper contributes to the journal themes on believable virtual characters in real-time narrative environment, narrative in digital games and storytelling and educational gaming with social software.

scholarly journals Expressing Personality Through Non-verbal Behaviour in Real-Time Interaction

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Saberi ◽  
Steve DiPaola ◽  
Ulysses Bernardet
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Affective State ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Virtual Human ◽  
Virtual Character ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Time Interaction ◽  
Verbal Behaviour ◽  
Psychological Models ◽  
Generative Approach

The attribution of traits plays an important role as a heuristic for how we interact with others. Many psychological models of personality are analytical in that they derive a classification from reported or hypothesised behaviour. In the work presented here, we follow the opposite approach: Our personality model generates behaviour that leads an observer to attribute personality characteristics to the actor. Concretely, the model controls all relevant aspects of non-verbal behaviour such as gaze, facial expression, gesture, and posture. The model, embodied in a virtual human, affords to realistically interact with participants in real-time. Conceptually, our model focuses on the two dimensions of extra/introversion and stability/neuroticism. In the model, personality parameters influence both, the internal affective state as well as the characteristic of the behaviour execution. Importantly, the parameters of the model are based on empirical findings in the behavioural sciences. To evaluate our model, we conducted two types of studies. Firstly, passive experiments where participants rated videos showing variants of behaviour driven by different personality parameter configurations. Secondly, presential experiments where participants interacted with the virtual human, playing rounds of the Rock-Paper-Scissors game. Our results show that the model is effective in conveying the impression of the personality of a virtual character to users. Embodying the model in an artificial social agent capable of real-time interactive behaviour is the only way to move from an analytical to a generative approach to understanding personality, and we believe that this methodology raises a host of novel research questions in the field of personality theory.

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