GAIPS Intelligent Agents and Synthetic Characters Group

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Inesc-ID

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 GAIPS-General areas Psychology and Education Agents/Behavious Graphics Elements Narrative and Agents Design Synthetic Characters

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Who? Psychology/Education and HCI  Nuno Otero  Catarina Gouveia  Ana Jorge Agents/behavious  Carlos Martinho  Rui Prada  António Brisson  João Dias Graphic Elements  Marco Vala  Celso Melo  Guilherme Raimundo Coordenação: Ana Paiva Narrative and Agents  Isabel Machado  Rui Figueiredo  Daniel Sobral  Ana Vaz Design  Fernando Rebelo  Mafalda Fernandes

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Intelligent Agents in Story Telling Story Tellers (embodied/not) Actors Characters (embodied/not) Directors Scriptwriters Cinematography and Camera Agents

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Case1. Papous: a storyteller Scripted PartiallyScripted Constrained by Role Autonomous Directed

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Goals - To build a character that tells stories.

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Scripting  Scripting languages to control the characters  Markup languages to control the “actions” of the characters: APML VHML CML

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Example: Papous Behaviour Tags for a StoryTeller Tag TypeFunction Behaviour(1)Indicate an action that the character should perform(e.g. ) Setting(2)Specify a new set where the character should be integrated(e.g. ) Illumination(3)Specify a new illumination pattern(e.g. ) Emotion(4)Explicitly modify the emotional state of the character(e.g. )

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 A story to be told… Hello everybody! I am extremely happy today! Lets take the usual tour, ok? This is the house I live in. It is a very big house. Want to go outside? Ahhh.... isn't this nice? I live in a small town right by the sea... Hmmm....I think it will be dark soon... Oh, I'm so afraid of the dark... Maybe we should get back in the house, right? Hey! Do you like stories? I bet you do! You know, I have a friend named Alex. He is a writer, and he is very tall. Much taller than me!... I haven't seen him in a while... and that makes me kind of sad... Anyway, I also have a very short friend named Paul. Hey! We have been talking for a long time... It is almost morning! What a marvellous day! Come back soon, ok? Bye,bye...

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Papous

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Evaluation of Papous

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Case 2.Teatrix Scripted PartiallyScripted Constrained by Role Autonomous Directed

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Story Snapshots The Audience Story Movie On Stage Story Setup Backstage Phases of Teatrix

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Characters in Teatrix  Virtual Actor + Role Propp’s work on folk tales Functions for characters according to its role  Roles in Teatrix Villain, Hero, Magician, Beloved One, Family, Donor

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Characters ‘r’ Agents  System Controlled Agents Different behaviour for each combination actor and role  Child Controlled Agents (semi-autonomous avatars)  Director Agent Narrative guidance

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Character Inventory Character Actions: Walk, Get Item, Drop Item, Use Item, Activate Item, Talk Controlled Character Talk Hello! Text to Speech Teatrix - On Stage

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Case 3. S3A Scripted PartiallyScripted Constrained by Role Autonomous Directed

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 World Module Stage Settings Mind Module Narrative Scriptwriter improvisation directives sensors Body Module Actors and Director multimedia meta-commands S3A

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Tristão & Isolda: the story

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Case 4: FearNot! Creating empathic experiences through narrative

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Application: VICTEC  Bullying (a constant and very frequent problem in schools…) Direct physical bullying (hitting, kicking, punching…) Verbal bullying including name calling, cruel teasing, taunting and threatening Relational/indirect bullying related to social exclusion, malicious rumor spreading and deliberate withdrawal of friendship  Victimization rates in the rate of 8% to 46% and bullying others from 3% to 23%  Consequences involve conduct disorder, hyperactivity, physical health problems, sickness, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem.

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Designing Characters in VICTEC: Mediating empathy through proximity  Based on characters that children already know and interact with (“proximity” aspect)

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Designing Characters in VICTEC: Mediating empathy though body expression

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Designing Characters in VICTEC: Mediating empathy through exaggeration Through body expression and animation Through posture and facial expression Voice: Current Text-to- Speech technology is inadequate Real Voice must be used to emphasize emotional content

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 FearNot!

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 Narrative  The narrative is used to convey the emotional imapct we want.  Internally, we have each episode described in generic terms to allow for the agents to behave according to the narrative goals.

Kaleidoscope NLE SIG Meeting, Lisbon 2004 How do we expect to contribute to NLE SIG  By working on the NLE survey  By establishing a direction for research on NLE  By disseminating the area among the network and througout Europe  By using some of out applications as case studies