Simulation of Individual Spontaneous Reactive Behavior

The context of this work is the search for realism and believability of Virtual Humans. Our contribution to achieve this goal is to enable Virtual Humans (VH) to react to spontaneous events in virtual environments (VE). In order to reflect the individuality of each VH, these reactions have to be expressive and unique. In this paper we present firstly a model of reaction based on personality traits. The model was defined using statistical analysis of real people reacting to unexpected events. We also consider that the emotional state is involved in the modulation of reactions, thus we integrate a model of emotion update. Secondly, we present a semantic-based methodology to compose reactive animation sequences using inverse kinematics (IK) and key frame (KF) interpolation animation techniques. Finally, we present an application that demonstrates how Virtual Humans can produce diferent movements as reaction to unexpected stimuli, depending on their personality traits and emotional state

Автоматизація процесів управління розподіленими командами з використанням технології чат-ботів

У роботі проведено дослідження процесів управління в компанії ТОВ «Центр мережевих технологій ВЕБ100» (QATestLab) і сформовано вимоги до автоматизованої інформаційної системи. Виконано проектування архітектури автоматизованої інформаційної системи. Створено прототип автоматизованої інформаційної системи на основі чат-бота.The master's thesis conducted research on management processes in the company "Center Network Technology WEB100" (QATestLab) and the requirements for the automated information system were composed. The architecture of the automated information system has been designed. A prototype of an automated chatbot information system has been developed

Автоматизація процесів управління розподіленими командами з використанням технології чат-ботів

У роботі проведено дослідження процесів управління в компанії ТОВ «Центр мережевих технологій ВЕБ100» (QATestLab) і сформовано вимоги до автоматизованої інформаційної системи. Виконано проектування архітектури автоматизованої інформаційної системи. Створено прототип автоматизованої інформаційної системи на основі чат-бота.The master's thesis conducted research on management processes in the company "Center Network Technology WEB100" (QATestLab) and the requirements for the automated information system were composed. The architecture of the automated information system has been designed. A prototype of an automated chatbot information system has been developed

Participant responses to virtual agents in immersive virtual environments.

This thesis is concerned with interaction between people and virtual humans in the context of highly immersive virtual environments (VEs). Empirical studies have shown that virtual humans (agents) with even minimal behavioural capabilities can have a significant emotional impact on participants of immersive virtual environments (IVEs) to the extent that these have been used in studies of mental health issues such as social phobia and paranoia. This thesis focuses on understanding the impact on the responses of people to the behaviour of virtual humans rather than their visual appearance. There are three main research questions addressed. First, the thesis considers what are the key nonverbal behavioural cues used to portray a specific psychological state. Second, research determines the extent to which the underlying state of a virtual human is recognisable through the display of a key set of cues inferred from the behaviour of real humans. Finally, the degree to which a perceived psychological state in a virtual human invokes responses from participants in immersive virtual environments that are similar to those observed in the physical world is considered. These research questions were investigated through four experiments. The first experiment focused on the impact of visual fidelity and behavioural complexity on participant responses by implementing a model of gaze behaviour in virtual humans. The results of the study concluded that participants expected more life-like behaviours from more visually realistic virtual humans. The second experiment investigated the detrimental effects on participant responses when interacting with virtual humans with low behavioural complexity. The third experiment investigated the differences in responses of participants to virtual humans perceived to be in varying emotional states. The emotional states of the virtual humans were portrayed using postural and facial cues. Results indicated that posture does play an important role in the portrayal of affect however the behavioural model used in the study did not fully cover the qualities of body movement associated with the emotions studied. The final experiment focused on the portrayal of affect through the quality of body movement such as the speed of gestures. The effectiveness of the virtual humans was gauged through exploring a variety of participant responses including subjective responses, objective physiological and behavioural measures. The results show that participants are affected and respond to virtual humans in a significant manner provided that an appropriate behavioural model is used

Presence 2005: the eighth annual international workshop on presence, 21-23 September, 2005 University College London (Conference proceedings)

OVERVIEW (taken from the CALL FOR PAPERS) Academics and practitioners with an interest in the concept of (tele)presence are invited to submit their work for presentation at PRESENCE 2005 at University College London in London, England, September 21-23, 2005. The eighth in a series of highly successful international workshops, PRESENCE 2005 will provide an open discussion forum to share ideas regarding concepts and theories, measurement techniques, technology, and applications related to presence, the psychological state or subjective perception in which a person fails to accurately and completely acknowledge the role of technology in an experience, including the sense of 'being there' experienced by users of advanced media such as virtual reality. The concept of presence in virtual environments has been around for at least 15 years, and the earlier idea of telepresence at least since Minsky's seminal paper in 1980. Recently there has been a burst of funded research activity in this area for the first time with the European FET Presence Research initiative. What do we really know about presence and its determinants? How can presence be successfully delivered with today's technology? This conference invites papers that are based on empirical results from studies of presence and related issues and/or which contribute to the technology for the delivery of presence. Papers that make substantial advances in theoretical understanding of presence are also welcome. The interest is not solely in virtual environments but in mixed reality environments. Submissions will be reviewed more rigorously than in previous conferences. High quality papers are therefore sought which make substantial contributions to the field. Approximately 20 papers will be selected for two successive special issues for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. PRESENCE 2005 takes place in London and is hosted by University College London. The conference is organized by ISPR, the International Society for Presence Research and is supported by the European Commission's FET Presence Research Initiative through the Presencia and IST OMNIPRES projects and by University College London

Semantics for virtual humans

Population of Virtual Worlds with Virtual Humans is increasing rapidly by people who want to create a virtual life parallel to the real one (i.e. Second Life). The evolution of technology is smoothly providing the necessary elements to increase realism within these virtual worlds by creating believable Virtual Humans. However, creating the amount of resources needed to succeed this believability is a difficult task, mainly because of the complexity of the creation process of Virtual Humans. Even though there are many existing available resources, their reusability is difficult because there is not enough information provided to evaluate if a model contains the desired characteristics to be reused. Additionally, the knowledge involved in the creation of Virtual Humans is not well known, nor well disseminated. There are several different creation techniques, different software components, and several processes to carry out before having a Virtual Human capable of populating a virtual environment. The creation of Virtual Humans involves: a geometrical representation with an internal control structure, the motion synthesis with different animation techniques, higher level controllers and descriptors to simulate human-like behavior such individuality, cognition, interaction capabilities, etc. All these processes require the expertise from different fields of knowledge such as mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, design, etc. Furthermore, there is neither common framework nor common understanding of how elements involved in the creation, development, and interaction of Virtual Humans features are done. Therefore, there is a need for describing (1) existing resources, (2) Virtual Human's composition and features, (3) a creation pipeline and (4) the different levels/fields of knowledge comprehended. This thesis presents an explicit representation of the Virtual Humans and their features to provide a conceptual framework that will interest to all people involved in the creation and development of these characters. This dissertation focuses in a semantic description of Virtual Humans. The creation of a semantic description involves gathering related knowledge, agreement among experts in the definition of concepts, validation of the ontology design, etc. In this dissertation all these procedures are presented, and an Ontology for Virtual Humans is described in detail together with the validations that conducted to the resulted ontology. The goal of creating such ontology is to promote reusability of existing resources; to create a shared knowledge of the creation and composition of Virtual Humans; and to support new research of the fields involved in the development of believable Virtual Humans and virtual environments. Finally, this thesis presents several developments that aim to demonstrate the ontology usability and reusability. These developments serve particularly to support the research on specialized knowledge of Virtual Humans, the population of virtual environments, and improve the believability of these characters