Software Tools for the Development and Reuse of Avatars with Culture-Specific Behaviors

For this Phase II SBIR Project, Vcom3D will develop and demonstrate a modular architecture for avatars whose behavior can be easily modified to model different cultures and contexts. Our approach will be to separate the "meaning and intent" of character interactions from the culturally-specific ways in which individual characters convey this meaning and intent through speech, gesture, and action. Based on this architecture, we will develop a "Behavior Engine" and supporting authoring tools for creating interactive scenarios that can be tailored for different cultures by embedding virtual characters with appropriate "built-in" low-level behaviors. We will develop a Behavior Knowledgebase that models culture-specific gestures and customs and conduct an evaluation of the performance, accuracy, and "believability" of the behaviors and development tools with DLI graduates and faculty, and other appropriate subject matter experts.