Spontaneous Avatar Behavior for Human Territoriality

Abstract. The challenge of making a virtual world believable includes a requirement for AI entities which autonomously react to a dynamic environment. After the breakthroughs in believability introduced by modern lightning and physics techniques, the focus is shifting to better AI behavior sophistication. Avatars and agents in a realistic virtual environment must exhibit a certain degree of presence and awareness of the surroundings, reacting consistently to unexpected contingencies and social situations. Unconscious reactions serve as evidence of life, and can also signal social availability and spatial awareness to others. These behaviors get lost when avatar motion requires explicit user control. This paper presents a new approach for generating believable social behavior in avatars. The focus is on human territorial behaviors during social interactions, such as during conversations and gatherings. Driven by theories on human territoriality, we define a reactive framework which all...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: IVA
• Authors: Claudio Pedica, Hannes Högni Vilhjálmsson
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Behavior, IVA 2009, Social, Social Interactions