_Virtual Actor

_ Project date:
2008

_DESCRIPTION

The project VirtualActor aims at creating the foundations for employing virtual actors. This R&D project is being financed by the Portuguese Research Foundation FCT, and involves investigators and programmers from the CCG and from the University of Minho.

The goal is the creation of virtual actors that can be employed in analogy to real actors. The user becomes the director of an animation film. He directs the virtual actors with simple commands, for instance “be more polite, in this scene”, or “wait a bit until you show your indignation”. In this way, in a very short time, an animation film of high quality can be created, that complies with the intentions of the director.

The project will develop a generic software framework that comprises first of all editors and a virtual character animation system. The editing framework will allow employing different control and AI technologies for virtual actors within the same conceptual and editing software system. Such applications require autonomous and intelligent virtual agents that are able to adapt, that perceive and possess a memory. With the help of the results of the project, everyone will be able, without special schooling and without much time effort, to create appealing and emotionally expressive 3D animated films with virtual actors.

Virtual actors will be able to create the illusion of life, acting autonomously and with speech and emotional and non-verbal expressions.

Everyone will be able to be director of his own film! Apart from the innovation that the results will bring to the production of animated films, virtual actors can be employed for many other applications, such as games, in education, for interactive stories, but also in the context of therapy of social phobias and behavior training, for example for training on how to conduct specific dialogues.

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