From Individual Human Agents to Crowds

In this paper, we first try to identify which mechanisms are to be simulated in order to implement truly virtual humans or actors. Starting from a structure linking perception, emotion, behaviour, and action, we empha-size the central concept of autonomy and introduce the concept of Levels of Autonomy. Finally, we propose a new abstraction for the specification of behaviours in complex virtual environment simulations involving human agents, groups of agents, and interactive objects endowed with different levels of autonomy