Given this, when users physically interact with a lifelike computer character in its environment, the character should be aware of what is happening and react immediately. Real living things are very reactive and interactive. When would a player believe a computer character is truly alive? What constitutes a convincing, interactive “illusion of life”? It seems that the best way to define what truly alive means is to study real living “characters” – that is, animals and people. When people talk about wanting great AI, or great “artificial life” for that matter, what they really want is the experience of interacting with something truly alive.
But figuring out the best next move is an incomplete definition of AI.
DOGZ 5 TOYS SOFTWARE
Since almost all interactive entertainment software products are games, the typical AI is designed to figure out the best move to make, such as the next punch or kick move, where to run to and shoot from, and so on. These days most people think the way to make a computer character more “real” is to make it look more photorealistic, and to give it a better AI. What are Lifelike, Believable Characters?
DOGZ 5 TOYS PC
Virtual Petz are autonomous real-time 3D characters that live on your PC computer desktop, grow up over time, and strive to be the user's friends and companions. The original Dogz, initially released in 1995, was the world’s first virtual pet, followed soon by Catz, Oddballz and the new Dogz II and Catz II.
We use the Virtual Petz we developed at PF. Next we discuss what should happen when multiple lifelike computer characters interact with each other, and what new kinds of interactive experiences for the user can result from this. The first multiple character interaction we discuss is between the user and a single lifelike computer character. In this paper we first propose what lifelike, believable characters should be, and design principles involved in making them. They tend to do and say the same things over and over no matter how hard the player tries to get them to react differently.įortunately, as the power of the personal computer grows, it is becoming more and more possible to create truly lifelike and believable autonomous characters.
While they are beginning to look more realistic, they still act in very limited and often predictable ways, with almost no variety in their behavior. But even to this day, with few exceptions, computer characters are really no more than shallow cardboard-cutouts.