     |
 |
 |
 | | | | |
 |
|||
 |
||||||
          |
 |
 |
||||
|
Agitating for Dramatic Change For Further Study Façade I recommend reading the paper, "Mid-project technical report, December 2002: Architecture, Authorial Idioms and Early Observations of the Interactive Drama Façade". The creators of Façade, a self-described "experiment in electronic narrative", have built (and continue to refine) a prototype that is very much like what I suggest in this article. Here is my response to Façade.
The idea of using a programming language that allows for parallel actions is first rate. Organizing in terms of dramatic "beats" and "beat goals" is a very good idea. Though they are concentrating on a one-act play simulation, their "beat sequencer" could be extended to manage the narrative and dramatic elements for a multiple-act interactive play. Having
read through the Façade paper quickly, I'm obviously
not an expert on their system, and it's possible that I've missed
some of the nuance in their project. But based on what I understand,
this is how I would proceed with the design of an ideal project.
I would follow the path of Michael Mateas, Andrew Stern, but with
some differences. Also
missing is an authoring interface, which would allow a dramatist
who is not a programmer to create dramatic works with the drama
world engine they've created. Though
the upfront work of creating the kind of machine Mateas and Stern
have created, along with an interface authoring shell, would be
an extensive commitment, once a "sim-drama-stage-with-authoring-interface"
is ready, many dramas could be produced with relative speed, when
compared to Façade, by someone who is simply a dramatist
trained to use the interface. Perhaps such a drama-engine-trained dramatist would invent a new way of working with writers. Animation writers are use to having someone else create a world and certain key characters. They are accustomed to pitching story ideas. When a story idea is accepted, the writer is given a green light to create an outline. When the outline is accepted the writer is given the green light to write the script. And then the script usually goes through a polish. Perhaps in some way similar a writer could pitch a story/ story-world idea. When accepted the writer could pitch the biographies of key characters. In other words, all of the key elements of a story/ drama would be written, but the story itself would not. Instead, the narrative elements would be pumped into the drama engine and the story would happen in real time. This way the company only needs one extra development person, in addition to artists and programmers - a trained drama world director who could adapt anyone's writing. The company does not have to find talented storytellers who are also interactive authors - a rare commodity. Nor would the company have to find cutting edge, multi-language programmers who are also dramatists and storytellers. Instead the company, once it has committed to the creation of an easy to use drama world engine, could hire and train a few drama sim world directors, and get to work creating many drama sims in the same kind of production-line way in which television and films are produced. In the paradigm I see, the very same drama world engine used for authoring is also the drama world engine used by the public. Simply, it is stripped of the authoring interface and replaced with the end user interface. I understand the need for proof of concept demos. But a proof of concept demo does not have to be even a one act dramatic simulation. Instead, a proof of concept demo could be a demonstration of the ability of a non-programmer user to direct synthespians, input dramatic beats and beat goals and orchestrate the seamless movement from dramatic moment to dramatic moment, and from scene to scene, and from act to act. Wouldn't it be impressive to let someone else (an executive) decide upon the narrative content of a demo, and then within a couple of weeks be able to offer a real time interactive drama based on the suggested narrative situation? Let's say that we want to create "sim-scene" demo after our drama engine and authoring interface is built. Here's the situation: the player engages a very harried synthespian to ask for directions. Naturally there are a lot of ways to fake this scene, but let's talk about how this could happen as a simulation of a real dramatic interaction. Say the synthespian has a dramatist-induced need to get off stage, and thus a goal to walk to part of the set, open a door, go through it, and thereby leave the stage. But the synthespian has a dramatist-induced mandate to stop and talk with whoever engages her in a kind way. This is a basic moment of dramatic conflict. How does it work in terms of design? As in Façade the synthespian has a base of possible beats, each with beat goals, and the experiencer can interrupt these beats. When the primary beat is interrupted before its goal is reached, a secondary beat comes into play, etc. The synthespian is also a learning chatter bot. It has the ability to "understand" plain language. It can respond to plain language with a database of possible things to say, as influenced by the current beat it's working from and the real time actions of the player. The database of possible responses is relational and divided into positive, neutral, and negative responses. But there is also a timer, which impacts "emotional sliders". Emotional inputs that can be "tuned" in real time is something that I don't think Façade has. The emotional inputs would be needs, wants, and biases. For instance, the longer the synthespian is detained, the more the "need slider" goes up. The more the "need slider goes up, the more the "bias slider" (towards the experiencer) goes down, towards negative. The more the synthespians' bias towards the experiencer becomes negative, the more the apparent personality of the synthespian (as shown through actions such as facial expression and body language) becomes negative. At the same time the door the synthespian must go through is mapped so that the synthespian recognizes this environmental element as one that will resolve the need to leave the stage, a la the "emotional topography mapping" in the Sims. Façade doesn't seem to have this kind of emotional topography mapping. As the synthespians "emotional sliders" go up and down, it chooses from the appropriate group of possible things to say. In the positive part of the database it can go through a give and take conversation about "directions" in a pleasant, evocative way. This would be the response to an experiencer input such as, "Pardon me." In the neutral part of the database would be responses to experiencer input such as, "Wait - I need directions!" On the negative side of the database the synthespian can go through a give and take conversation about being very busy and really having to leave now. At the far end of the negative database the synthespian can decide to tell the experiencer off, break away from the conversation, go to the door, and leave the stage. This would be a response to something like, "Hey, you! Stop! I want directions." Of course this is a simplified example and the possible interactions would be more complex. For instance, the experiencer could start off on the positive side of the synthespian, but then end up pissing her off after a substantial interaction and emotional roller coaster. Perhaps as the conversation gets longer and longer she has more and more of a propensity to look at the door leading off stage and back away in that direction, etc. Perhaps just delaying her long enough, no matter how pleasant the experiencer is, will cause the synthespian to become more and more frantic (as evidenced by her facial mannerisms, gestures, body language and other physical actions). In terms of voice, the tone, strength of consonants, and rhythm could change as informed by emotional sliders. So, instead of immediate and global actions for the synthespians, as in Façade, I would concentrate on pre-defined emotional baggage, as expressed through habitual actions, which compete for expression with actions appropriate for the real time interaction taking place. Also competing for expression are actions informed by the author's mandated need to get off the stage. This mandate is the outcome of an authored need, which responds to a set mapped with emotional topography, as in The Sims. The need is to leave the stage. The door is mapped with potential to resolve this need. Finally, there would be a timer, and emotional sliders. The emotional sliders, timer and emotional topography could spawn beats. As in Façade, a drama manager would choose the beat actions with the highest priority on a moment-by-moment basis. I would follow the path of Façade, but I would ask that the drama engine be created with utility in mind, rather than around a specific narrative. I would add needs, wants, and biases to our synthespians, which can be modified as "emotional sliders" in real time in response to other synthespian actions, player actions, and environmental events. I would want the ability to give the synthespians "emotional baggage", as evidenced through habitual actions and mannerisms. I would map the set with an emotional topography, as in The Sims so that some of the authoring would be taken over by the machine. Finally, I would call for an authoring interface that a non-programmer dramatist could use to create dramas with the drama engine. Like a stage director or a film director, a dramatist trained to use our drama engine through a friendly interface (and probably with the help of other specialists -- like set builders, lighters, animators, etc.) would interpret anyone's written word, and make the thousands of decisions necessary to create an evocative synthetic drama -- in a predictable, financially viable, timeline. Crowd! Crowd! is a behavioral animation system built on a real-time engine called Neuro!Machine, which will be released in November by Vital Idea. With Crowd!, digital artists can integrate SynThespians into shots. These 3D performers follow rules for behavioral animation and can be directed to simulate any number of real world applications, including: battle sequences, filling stadiums, filling open spaces, the dynamic of city streets. Originally conceived in 2001 with the internal development name Doppleganger, Crowd! has been in development for more than two years. It began as a plug-in to extend the power of an existing package; however, it rapidly "took on a life of its own." Neuro!Machine may be integrated into an existing realtime gaming engine or be accessed via Crowd!Serve servers for realtime simulation over a network. Crowd! is an artificial intelligence-based standalone animation system for film, broadcast, simulation and electronic gaming. Features include:
The
Mind-Boggling Future Of Virtual Reality "In the next decades, we're going to have worlds and renditions of reality that will make our modern way of thinking of the world -- perspectival and cognitive and mathematical and certain -- seem almost medieval." "It is perhaps inevitable that, at the end of this story, science reunites with fiction. The U.S. military has used simulators for a long time to teach trainees how to fly a plane or use other types of machinery. Now, the military is taking simulation to a whole new level. It's set up the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California -- an assembly of people from film, games, computer science and the army -- to create a virtual training ground filled with virtual people. "The goal is to create a prototype of something like the Holodeck," says Dr. Bill Swartout, the institute's technical director. Some of the people at ICT even worked on Star Trek, he says. "The Holodeck is a source of inspiration. It suggests research paths we're going down." http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife/story.html?f=/stories/20020316/352666.html Source: Gamasutra 2.11.02 MIT
Invents Videos Of People Saying Things They Never Said "CAMBRIDGE
- Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created
the first realistic videos of people saying things they never said
- a scientific leap that raises unsettling questions about falsifying
the moving image. Eyematic
Awarded Four U.S. Patents Eyematic, the creators of the FaceStation software has been awarded four U.S. patents covering its facial animation and visual sensing technology. The FaceStation software uses the technology (developed over the past 10 years) to automate the 3D facial animation process for game, feature film, TV, web and wireless content creation. By using a standard Windows PC and a video device such as a webcam or DV camcorder, the FaceStation is able to allow an actor to "drive" a fully textured 3D head in realtime using their own facial expressions and head movements. Before the creation of FaceStation, realistic 3D facial animation was limited to a small number of high-end applications, because of the expensive mocap hardware and laborious manual keyframe editing and process involved. "The visual sensing technology in FaceStation is a remarkable accomplishment. With it, FaceStation changes the rules and allows any 3D artist to create high quality facial animation in record time, regardless of budget or expertise," says Orang Dialameh, president and co-founder of Eyematic. For more info, check out www.eyematic.com "Robots
You Can Relate To" Vision:
Why:
Visionary:
Day
job: Breakthrough:
Who's
paying attention: Quote:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features
|
|
|