Real-Time Behavioral Animation of Humanoid Non-Player Characters with a Computational Ecosystem

A novel approach to a decentralized autonomous model of agency for general purpose Non-Player Characters (NPCs) is presented: Computational Ecosystems as a model of AI. We describe the technology used to animate a population of gregarious humanoid characters in the virtual world Where is Lourenco Marques? an ethnographic artistic work characterized as a virtual world inhabited by a population of NPCs interacting autonomously among themselves as well as with an audience of outsiders (human observers). First, we present the background and motivations for the project. Then, we describe the technical details about the algorithm that was developed to generate the movements and behaviors of a population of NPC ‘storytellers’. Finally, we layout some of the critical aspects of this particular implementation and contextualize the work with regards to a wider usage in virtual worlds