Automatic generation of conversational behavior for multiple embodied virtual characters: The rules and models behind our system

Abstract

In this paper we presented the rules and algorithms we use to automatically generate non-verbal behavior like gestures and gaze for two embodied virtual agents. They allow us to transform a dialogue in text format into an agent behavior script enriched by eye gaze and conversational gesture behavior. The agents' gaze behavior is informed by theories of human face-to-face gaze behavior. Gestures are generated based on the analysis of linguistic and contextual information of the input text. Since all behaviors are generated automatically, our system offers content creators a convenient method to compose multimodal presentations, a task that would otherwise be very cumbersome and time consuming. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.