Edirlei Soares de Lima

Automatic Video Editing for Video-Based Interactive Storytelling

The development of interactive narratives with the quality of feature films is the central challenge of what we can name Video-Based Interactive Storytelling. A promising approach to this question is the use of prerecorded videos with real actors. Amongst several technical challenges, this approach firstly requires automatic video editing methods for interactive narratives. However, this is a critical issue not fully covered in the literature. In this paper, we present a real-time editing method for interactive storytelling systems, which automatically generates the most adequate shot transitions, swaps video segments to avoid jump cuts, and creates adequate looping scenes. Moreover, these features consider the characteristics of the ongoing story.

Non-branching Interactive Comics

Comics are a unique and classical form of storytelling. The advent of interactive narratives brings the possibility of interaction to the traditional comic books. In this paper we present a non-branching interactive comics system capable of generating dynamic interactive narratives in the format of comic books. The system allows users to interact with certain objects, and then observe the consequences of their actions in the unfolding story. We validate the proposed system with a user study conducted with 18 participants. The results indicate that such systems may indeed provide an attractive form of entertainment.

Draw your own story: Paper and pencil interactive storytelling☆

Abstract Drawing is a primary human skill that has been used for thousands of years as a visual complement to written and oral storytelling. The advent of interactive narratives brings the possibility of interaction to the traditional stories. In this paper, we present a storytelling system able to dramatize interactive narratives in augmented reality over a conventional sheet of paper. The system allows users to freely interact with virtual characters by sketching objects on the paper. Users interacting with the system can thus indirectly affect the characters’ decisions, even to the point of radically subverting the storyline. We validate the proposed system with a user study conducted with 21 participants. The results show that the use of hand drawings as a form of interaction improves user satisfaction and experience and the system usability.

Multimodal, Multi-user and Adaptive Interaction for Interactive Storytelling Applications

The ability that users have to interact and change stories according to their own desires is what differentiates interactive narratives from conventional films. Moreover, this ability expands the boundaries of computer games towards new forms of digital entertainment. However, designing an interaction model for an interactive storytelling system involves several challenges, from the need for natural interaction interfaces to adequate multi-user settings. In this paper we present the development and evaluation of a multimodal, multi-user, and adaptive interaction system for an interactive storytelling application.

Hierarchical generation of dynamic and nondeterministic quests in games

Quests are a fundamental storytelling mechanism used by computer role-playing games to engage players in the games narrative. Although role-playing games have evolved in many different ways in the last years, their basic narrative structure is still based on static plots manually created by game designers. In this paper, we present a method for the generation of dynamic quests based on hierarchical task decomposition and planning under non-determinism. The proposed approach combines planning, execution, and monitoring to efficiently handle nondeterministic events and support quests with multiple endings that affect the games narrative and create interactive and dynamic story plots. These plots are directly or indirectly affected by players actions and decisions. Furthermore, this paper presents the concept of hierarchical quests.

Information-Gathering events in story plots

Story plots must contain, besides physical action events, a minimal set of information-gathering events, whereby the various characters can form their beliefs on the facts of the mini-world in which the narrative takes place. In this paper, we present an approach to model such events within a plan-based storytelling context. Three kinds of such events are considered here, involving, respectively, inter-character communication, perception and reasoning. Multiple discordant beliefs about the same fact are allowed, making necessary the introduction of higher-level facilities to rank them and to exclude those that violate certain constraints. Other higher-level facilities are also available for pattern-matching against typical-plan libraries or previously composed plots. A prototype logic programming implementation is fully operational. A simple example is used throughout the presentation.

Social interaction for interactive storytelling

In recent years interactive narratives emerged as a new form of digital entertainment, allowing users to interact and change stories according to their own desires. In this paper, we explore the use of social networks as a way of interaction in interactive narratives. We present the interaction interface of an interactive storytelling system that allows users to interact and change stories through social networks. To validate our approach we conducted a user study with 24 participants. The preliminary results show that our method improved the user satisfaction and experience. The proposed methods can be adapted to other applications that require social interaction.

Supporting Characters in Interactive Storytelling

This paper presents a model of a Supporting Characters Director for interactive storytelling systems. The model can enhance the dramatization, improve the realism, and increase the duration of the stories being generated. The Director generates and manages three types of supporting characters. Some has the ability to interact with the main characters, while others are just used to populate the scenarios.

Director of Photography and Music Director for Interactive Storytelling

The way emotions are expressed in a film has great impact on the viewers understanding of the narrative. Over the years, filmmakers developed several techniques to enhance the perception of these emotions, such as the photography and the audio editing of the scenes. This paper proposes two cinematography-inspired autonomous agents designed to better express the emotional aspects of interactive storytelling environments. Both the director of photography and music director use support vector machines trained with a cinematography-knowledge dataset to create and manipulate the audio and visual parameters of a runtime dramatization engine, thus increasing the immersion of the viewers in the story.

Storytelling Variants: The Case of Little Red Riding Hood

A small number of variants of a widely disseminated folktale is surveyed, and then analyzed in an attempt to determine how such variants can emerge while staying within the conventions of the genre. The study follows the classification of types and motifs contained in the Index of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. The paper’s main contribution is the characterization of four kinds of type interactions in terms of semiotic relations. Our objective is to provide the conceptual basis for the development of semi-automatic methods to help users compose their own narrative plots.