A Transparent and Decentralized Model of Action for Intelligent Virtual Agents

Intelligent virtual agent action is a crucial element of any virtual environment application as it essentially brings the environment to life, introduces believability and realism, and enables complex interactions and evolution over time. However, the design and development of mechanisms for virtual agent action is neither a trivial nor a straightforward task. In this paper we present a model of action for virtual agents that meets specific requirements and, as such, can be systematically implemented, can seamlessly and transparently integrate with knowledge representation and intelligent reasoning mechanisms, is highly independent of virtual world implementation specifics, and enables virtual agent portability and reuse.