VIBES: Bringing Autonomy to Virtual Characters

Sanchez, Stéphane; Luga, Hervé; Duthen, Yves; Balet, Olivier

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-25958-9_3

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Moving beyond the limitations, the repurposing guidelines that emerge from this study could facilitate the use of even more open-ended virtual patients and eventually lead to procedural virtual patients. Additionally, such semantic enrichment in the context of a highly interactive 3D virtual environment could facilitate the game feedback in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) avatars that can provide meaningful challenge or assistance to a user by tapping into resources linked through semantic enrichment [ 87 - 89 ]. That kind of sophisticated user interaction and automated content creation in 3D environments would greatly enhance both the utility and the impact of the MUVE-deployed virtual patient.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Design Requirements for Repurposing Dental Virtual Patients From the Web to Second Life: A Focus Group Study

Antoniou¹,

Athanasopoulou²,

Dafli³

et al. 2014

J Med Internet Res

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BackgroundSince their inception, virtual patients have provided health care educators with a way to engage learners in an experience simulating the clinician’s environment without danger to learners and patients. This has led this learning modality to be accepted as an essential component of medical education. With the advent of the visually and audio-rich 3-dimensional multi-user virtual environment (MUVE), a new deployment platform has emerged for educational content. Immersive, highly interactive, multimedia-rich, MUVEs that seamlessly foster collaboration provide a new hotbed for the deployment of medical education content.ObjectiveThis work aims to assess the suitability of the Second Life MUVE as a virtual patient deployment platform for undergraduate dental education, and to explore the requirements and specifications needed to meaningfully repurpose Web-based virtual patients in MUVEs.MethodsThrough the scripting capabilities and available art assets in Second Life, we repurposed an existing Web-based periodontology virtual patient into Second Life. Through a series of point-and-click interactions and multiple-choice queries, the user experienced a specific periodontology case and was asked to provide the optimal responses for each of the challenges of the case. A focus group of 9 undergraduate dentistry students experienced both the Web-based and the Second Life version of this virtual patient. The group convened 3 times and discussed relevant issues such as the group’s computer literacy, the assessment of Second Life as a virtual patient deployment platform, and compared the Web-based and MUVE-deployed virtual patients.ResultsA comparison between the Web-based and the Second Life virtual patient revealed the inherent advantages of the more experiential and immersive Second Life virtual environment. However, several challenges for the successful repurposing of virtual patients from the Web to the MUVE were identified. The identified challenges for repurposing of Web virtual patients to the MUVE platform from the focus group study were (1) increased case complexity to facilitate the user’s gaming preconception in a MUVE, (2) necessity to decrease textual narration and provide the pertinent information in a more immersive sensory way, and (3) requirement to allow the user to actuate the solutions of problems instead of describing them through narration.ConclusionsFor a successful systematic repurposing effort of virtual patients to MUVEs such as Second Life, the best practices of experiential and immersive game design should be organically incorporated in the repurposing workflow (automated or not). These findings are pivotal in an era in which open educational content is transferred to and shared among users, learners, and educators of various open repositories/environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Design Requirements for Repurposing Dental Virtual Patients From the Web to Second Life: A Focus Group Study

Antoniou¹,

Athanasopoulou²,

Dafli³

et al. 2014

J Med Internet Res

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“…-the Quest3D visualisation engine [70] -Instinct(maker) artificial life engine (Toulouse University) [165] -ATOM Spoken Dialogue System (http://www.agilingua.com) -High resolution, motion captured characters and objects from the period (Red Bedlam).…”

Section: Roma Novamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These virtual characters with different behaviours can teach the player about different aspects of life in Rome (living conditions, politics, military) [165]. Agilingua ATOM's dialogue management algorithm allows determining how the system will react: asking questions, making suggestions, and/or confirming an answer.…”

Section: Roma Novamentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

et al. 2010

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Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-ofthe-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented.

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“…They combine a set of basic behaviours to a database of knowledge representations within the same architecture, for the agent to be reactive enough to act naturally yet cognitive enough to act coherently. The ViBes architecture [33] (figure 5.b) has relevant features. It is firstly a hierarchical controller, so that every complex behaviour is built from the organisation of lower-complexity behaviours operating recursively until the lowest level of complexity, which consist in basic moves that can easily be rendered by motion captures.…”

Section: Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Level of Interaction Framework for Exploratory Learning with Characters in Virtual Environments

Panzoli

Peters

Dunwell

et al. 2010

Intelligent Computer Graphics 2010

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This paper investigates a range of challenges faced in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching history in situ, through the use of an immersive, open virtual environment. In the context of this paper, such an environment is described as an exploratory, expansive virtual world within which a user may interact in a non-linear and situated fashion with the virtual characters that populate it. The main contribution of this paper consists of the introduction of the Levels of Interaction (LoI) framework, designed to assist in the creation of multiple forms of interaction between a user-driven avatar and synthetic characters. The LoI approach addresses the necessity for balancing computational efficiency with the need to provide believable and interactive virtual characters, allowing varying degrees of visual, interactive and behavioural fidelity. The Roma Nova project demonstrates a first implementation of the concept, showing in practice how the LoI are likely to foster more natural interactions between the player and the non-playing characters.

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VIBES: Bringing Autonomy to Virtual Characters

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

Exploring Design Requirements for Repurposing Dental Virtual Patients From the Web to Second Life: A Focus Group Study

Exploring Design Requirements for Repurposing Dental Virtual Patients From the Web to Second Life: A Focus Group Study

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

A Level of Interaction Framework for Exploratory Learning with Characters in Virtual Environments

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