VIRTUAL AGORA: REPRESENTATION OF AN ANCIENT GREEK AGORA IN VIRTUAL WORLDS USING BIOLOGICALLY-INSPIRED MOTIVATIONAL AGENTS

Abstract

Populating virtual worlds with computer controlled characters is a key issue in virtual heritage applications, an argument that can also be held as valid for the majority of virtual world applications. Virtual heritage worlds usually tend to be either devoid of people, or include computer-controlled characters that function as animated props, demonstrating pre-scripted and repetitive behaviour. In more advanced approaches, digital characters in special roles, such as virtual guides, may also be situated in the virtual world. Recent virtual heritage reconstruction works seem to acknowledge the necessity of incorporating non-human controlled characters that include intelligence in order to enhance presence and provide the user with an engaging experience. This paper presents the design and development of Virtual Agora, a virtual heritage application in the Open Simulator environment aiming to replicate daily life in an ancient Greek agora using biologically-inspired motivational agents. The application follows a multi-layered motivational model for agents that includes biological, as well as psychosocial needs. Every agent possesses a set of basic attributes that relate to its biological and physical characteristics, as well as its personality. Furthermore, agents are endowed with a set of behaviours that satisfy particular goals and consist of a sequence of actions towards achieving this goal. In addition to this generic action set, every agent possesses an extra set of actions, based on its assignment of a role or profession. The roles and the respective behaviours have been designed and selected based on available resources regarding life in the ancient agora of classical Athens. In the current implementation visitors can walk around the environment observing daily activities performed by the digital characters and interact with them by asking questions about aspects of their profession.