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Hierarchical Motion Controllers for Real-Time Autonomous Virtual Humans

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Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3661))

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Abstract

Continuous and synchronized whole-body motions are essential for achieving believable autonomous virtual humans in interactive applications.

We present a new motion control architecture based on generic controllers that can be hierarchically interconnected and reused in real-time. The hierarchical organization implies that leaf controllers are motion generators while the other nodes are connectors, performing operations such as interpolation, blending, and precise scheduling of children controllers.

We also describe how the system can correctly handle the synchronization of gestures with speech in order to achieve believable conversational characters. For that purpose, different types of controllers implement a generic model of the different phases of a gesture.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California,  

    Marcelo Kallmann

  2. Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California,  

    Stacy Marsella

Authors
  1. Marcelo Kallmann
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  2. Stacy Marsella
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece

    Themis Panayiotopoulos

  2. Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California, 13274 Fiji Way, 90292, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA

    Jonathan Gratch

  3. School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot Watt University, EH14 4AS, Edinburgh, Scotland

    Ruth Aylett

  4. BT plc, Adastral Park, Ipswich, IP5 3RE, UK

    Daniel Ballin

  5. School of Computing Science, Culture Lab, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Patrick Olivier

  6. University of Applied Sciences Augsburg, Friedberger Str. 2a, 86161, Augsburg, Germany

    Thomas Rist

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kallmann, M., Marsella, S. (2005). Hierarchical Motion Controllers for Real-Time Autonomous Virtual Humans. In: Panayiotopoulos, T., Gratch, J., Aylett, R., Ballin, D., Olivier, P., Rist, T. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3661. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11550617_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11550617_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28738-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-28739-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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