A R T I C L ES from left to right: Jamison Moore, Anton Leuski, Stacey Marsella, Jon Gratch, David Traum, Arno Hartholt In building Gunslinger, the team watched hours and hours of old Western movies to deconstruct their style and learned to add in ways to use the story to shape the audience.
INSIDE: “Gunslinger” @ ICT Step inside a Wild West saloon filled with engineering technology By Kathleen Concialdi Sitting in a dark movie theater, have you ever wished you could be a part of the action? Now, thanks to an interactive storytelling experience called “Gunslinger,” that fantasy is becoming a reality. A product of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), Gunslinger was brought to life by Jonathan Gratch, a Viterbi research associate professor, and Kim LeMasters, ICT’s former creative director. Gunslinger allows a person to walk through the fictional Clementine Saloon as the town sheriff and interact with Utah the barkeep, Harmony the bargirl, and Rio, the bandit. Except Utah, Harmony, and Rio aren’t real. They are virtual humans. And the goal of the scenario is for all of the characters, including the real world sheriff, to work together to take down Rio. Gunslinger may look like a video game that transports the sheriff into a world of virtual hu-
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mans, but these computer-generated humans don’t just respond using a generalized robotic script of answers or reactions. Characters can react, respond, and communicate as though you were speaking with another live human being. Lifelike activity is possible thanks to ICT’s virtual human research. This includes speech recognition, computer vision, dialogue management and character animation systems; all developed by Viterbi faculty. The Nonverbal Behavior Generator, developed by research associate professor Stacy Marsella and his former graduate student Jina Lee, Ph.D., allows the characters to appropriately nod, focus their gaze, and exhibit facial expressions. Another Marsella-developed system called SmartBody, blends these behaviors into a smooth animation, allowing them to happen naturally as a live human would. NPCEditor – a tool from An-
ton Leuski, a Viterbi research assistant professor and member of ICT’s Natural Language Dialogue group, helps enable the virtual characters to carry on conversations with the real life ranger. Initially developed as a way to see if there was a way to combine engineering, cinema, and a video game experience together to make engineering exciting, Gunslinger has possibilities beyond the realm of just being fun. Jonathan Gratch, who leads ICT’s virtual human research efforts, describes Gunslinger as “the chassis of a car.” He says Gunslinger and its technologies are like the system, and this system can be used in various areas. Marsella, head of ICT’s Social Simulation group, says that these types of programs and technologies aid in the development of social and professional skills. The virtual human technology allows a person the ability to create a virtual
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avatar in web and game interactions, but the virtual humans also act as role players to influence human behaviors. Marsella believes virtual humans can be viewed as a “new form of computer interface” which allows platforms like Gunslinger to aid in real world applications such as training soldiers in negotiation tactics, guiding doctors in better bedside manner, and even helping real life humans with stress management techniques. Gunslinger was created by a team of people with backgrounds in computer science, psychology, Hollywood stage craft and storytelling. As it combines many different fields of study, Gratch believes that Gunslinger is a great example of the collective interdisciplinary work that USC strives for.
Sidle on up to the bar and take a gander at this behind the scenes video: viterbi.usc.edu/Gunslinger
Jonathan Gratch’s background is in cognitive science. He believes that virtual humans can be used as tools to test psychological theories and to engage with humans. Stacy Marsella has a background in economics and psychology, and uses research in computational models as a way to understand people and their behaviors. Both got involved to use virtual humans as tools to engage people, test psychological theories and understand people.
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