SOAP
IRIS Wiki - IS Systems - SOAP
Contents
Availability
The SOAP scenario was developed as a research prototype. It is not available for download. Nevertheless, you can get most of the technical components used for implementing the system for download, such as the Virtual Beergarden [1] and SceneMaker [2].
Technical Description
In the soap-like story, the user can interact with a set of virtual characters. Through dialog interactions, the progress and outcome of the story can be influenced. For the realization of the SOAP scenario, several components were needed such as language understanding that parses the user's text input into abstract dialog utterances, a dialog model that controls the narrative flow of the story and a graphical representation holding the virtual characters as well as the user avatar. The Figure below shows the main components of the system architecture and their responsibilities.
Result Description
In the scenario, the characters are involved in a romantic conflict. The user, who is represented by an avatar can approach the different characters, listen to their conversations and interact with them. In that manner, the user can either approach a group of girls, a group of guys, or a waitress that is working in a virtual beer garden. In order to save resources, dialogs take place only if the user is near the characters, otherwise idle dialog behavior is presented. Through observation and interaction, the user will learn that there is a love story secretly going on. Dependent on the user's interactions, the characters will reveal their love, ask for help and follow the user's advice. Different scenario endings were modeled, while the user can make a match between two characters.
Authoring Description
The tools used for the authoring process are
- SceneMaker: Dialog modeling and the flow of the scenario is done using the SceneMaker [3] tool which relies on Sceneflows as computational model.
- SPIN: The user's typed text input is parsed into abstract dialog utterances using the semantic parser SPIN.
Main Publications
- Endrass, B., Klimmt, C. Mehlmann, G., André, E. and Roth, C. (2011) Exploration of User Reactions to Different Dialog-based Interaction Style, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS 2011)
- Mehlmann, G:, Endrass, B., André, E. (2011) Modeling and Interpretation of Multithreaded and Multimodal Dialogue, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2011).
Computational Model
The tool was designed without any background of narrative theories but uses Sceneflows as the main mean for dialogue and interaction modeling.
Type of Interaction
- Interaction devices: keyboard, mouse
- Input modalities: typed-text
- Output modalities: text-to-speech & nonverbal behavior of virtual characters
Contact
For further information please contact Birgit Endrass [4].
