Drama Princess is a research and development project by Tale of Tales. It is an attempt to create a reusable virtual actor for realtime 3D projects. The focus is on expressiveness and dramatic effect rather than simulation and artificial intelligence.
This journal exists to keep a record of the progress that we’re making and to invite and collect input from other people.
Don’t build an A.I. system when randomness is just as good.
People want to believe. They want to make sense of what they see. They automatically make up stories. We want to use this inclination in order to avoid building complex systems that will always only half-work anyway. Richness in behaviour will add more to credibility than consistency in logic.
Reusable
Drama Princess should be a module that can be used to portray many different characters with very different personalities. We should be able to define these personalities with a minimum of fuss.
No language
In the games of Tale of Tales, we tend to avoid the use of any specific language, spoken or written. This simplifies at least one problem when creating an autonomous agent: Drama Princess does not need to speak, nor does it need to understand words.
Humans
We realize that using animals or other non-human creatures is a very clever trick to make an autonomous character seem more intelligent. But Drama Princess’s focus is on humans. We want to tell stories to humans about humans.
No games
Tale of Tales does not necessarily want to develop games. We’re interested in entertaining interaction with virtual worlds and characters. But not necessarily in games. In fact we suspect that the goal-oriented and rules-based nature of games may stand in the way of artistic expressiveness, which is the primary goal of our work.
Technology
The technology that we use to develop this system is Quest3D, a realtime visual programming environment for interactive 3D.
Support
Drama Princess is supported by the Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds.
Open source
The results of our research, including any source files, will be released in the public domain when we’re done.
This blog
We chose the blog format because it arranges posts chronologically and we want to be able to see the evolution of our ideas. Nevertheless, some posts, especially the ones in the Books, Websites and Games categories, may be updated, as the research into their topics continues.
The software used for this weblog is WordPress.
The Drama Princess signature drawing of the Deaf Mute Little Girl in the Pretty White Dress with her cat was made by Gorik Lindemans for 8.
The main editor of this journal is Michaël Samyn, co-founder and designer/programmer at Tale of Tales. Michaël has a background in graphic design, website design and net.art. He is one half of Entropy8Zuper!
As of 2002, he has focused on developing interactive experiences in realtime 3D. With Auriea Harvey, he hopes to realize some of the artistic potential of games technology.
Posted on May 4, 2006 at 8:51 am
For general discussion, please see the web forum dedicated to this project.
Posted on December 24, 2006 at 3:19 am
Interesting. I think there is a need for something like this, although I will need to read into the specifics to know exactly what you are trying to do here.
Posted on September 19, 2007 at 9:05 pm
I quite like the sound of this; it seems to me that this could be a rather special kind of system. I certainly like what you are doing with the rest of your, (for want of a better word only, I assure you.) games. 8 looks particularily interesting.
Good luck.
Posted on June 13, 2009 at 7:48 am
that berret word might be “projects” 😛
Posted on July 9, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
And you et an account on Twitter?
Posted on July 11, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Sure.
Please send a link when you’re done!
Here’s our twitter:
http://twitter.com/taleoftales
Posted on August 19, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Your way of delivering ideas is as usual interesting and innovative.
This idea particularly. A shape for virtual experiences to come.
Still, no Japan though :(.
Sigh.
Giovanni
Posted on November 19, 2010 at 3:24 am
I got to know you TOT people by the game ‘the path’. I really love the way you think of the definition of the genre of ‘game’ as a way of artistic expression. I am very impressed that there are people pushing the limits of this genre; from just a way of entertainment to expressive media! I am supporting your projects with all my heart and best wishes possible. 🙂
-On one cloudy day
somewhere in South Korea