Researchers demand much from their embodied conversational agents (ECAs), requiring them to be both life-like, as well as responsive to events in an interactive setting We find that a flexible combination of animation approaches may be needed to satisfy these needs In this paper we present SmartBody, an open source modular framework for animating ECAs in real time, based on the notion of hierarchically connected animation controllers Controllers in SmartBody can employ arbitrary animation algorithms such as keyframe interpolation, motion capture or procedural animation Controllers can also schedule or combine other controllers We discuss our architecture in detail, including how we incorporate traditional approaches, and develop the notion of a controller as a reactive module within a generic framework, for realizing modular animation control To illustrate the versatility of the architecture, we also discuss a range of applications that have used SmartBody successfully

/pdf/smartbody-behavior-realization-for-embodied-conversational-1wgc60f3ky.pdf

SmartBody: behavior realization for embodied conversational agents

This paper presents a new approach to model general interactions between virtual human agents and objects in virtual worlds. The proposed framework is designed to deal with many of the possible interactions that may arise while simulating a virtual human performing common tasks in a virtual environment. The idea is to include within the object description, all the necessary information to describe how to interact with it. For this, a feature modeling approach is used, by means of a graphical user interface program, to identify object interaction features. Moving parts, functionality instructions and interaction locations are examples of some considered features. Following this approach, the control of the simulation is decentralized from the main animation control, in the sense that some local instructions on how to deal with the object are encapsulated within the object itself. To illustrate the approach, some examples are shown and discussed.

/pdf/modeling-objects-for-interaction-tasks-1w6kwzreul.pdf

Modeling Objects for Interaction Tasks

Reference VRLAB-CONF-2007-052View record in Web of Science Record created on 2007-03-05, modified on 2017-05-12

Crowd simulation for interactive virtual environments and VRtraining systems

We outline the creation of an Informed Environment, dedicated to urban life simulation. We propose methods and tools for creating and providing the information necessary for animating virtual humans in a city using an Informed Environment. The Informed Environment is based on a hierarchical decomposition of an urban scene into Environment Entities providing geometrical information as well as semantic notions, thus allowing a more realistic simulation of human behaviour. In this manner, virtual humans can integrate with a certain kind of urban knowledge

An Informed Environment Dedicated to the Simulation of Virtual Humans in Urban Context

In this paper we present a virtual tennis game. We describe the creation and modeling of the virtual humans and body deformations, also showing the real-time animation and rendering aspects of the avatars. We focus on the animation of the virtual tennis ball and the behavior of a synthetic, autonomous referee who judges the tennis games. The networked, collaborative, virtual environment system is described with special reference to its interfaces to driver programs. We also mention the virtual reality (VR) devices that are used to merge the interactive players into the virtual tennis environment, together with the equipment and technologies employed for this exciting experience. We conclude with remarks on personal experiences during the game and on future research topics to improve parts of the presented system.

Anyone for Tennis

Real-time animation of virtual humans requires a dedicated architecture for the integration of different motion control techniques running into so-called actions. In this paper, we describe a software architecture called AGENTlib for the management of action combination. Considered actions exploit various techniques from keyframe sequence playback to inverse kinematics and motion capture. Two major requirements have to be enforced from the end user viewpoint: first, that multiple motion controllers can control simultaneously some parts or whole of the virtual human, and second, that successive actions result in a smooth motion flow

Pascal Bécheiraz

Papers

Integration of motion control techniques for virtual human and avatar real-time animation