Generation and visualization of emotional states in virtual characters

This paper presents an affective model that determines the emotional state of a character according to the personality traits and the experienced emotions. We consider an emotional state as the layer between personality and emotion. The proposed affective model offers a mapping between emotions and emotional states. To evidence emotional states of a virtual character, we can attribute them facial expressions based on their associated emotions. Facial expressions for intermediate emotions are generated automatically from expressions for universal emotions. The experiments show coherent emotional states produced by a simulated story. They also present how the corresponding emotions were represented through dynamic and static facial expressions. Finally, the obtained results demonstrate the satisfactory recognition by a group of people unfamiliar with the work described. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.