| Virtual environments provide a powerful medium for studying human behavior. To exploit the potential of virtual environments as laboratories for psychological experimentation, we must be able to control the dynamics of complex virtual environments populated with autonomous entities. In experiments, the right things must happen at the right time and place.;My research addresses two essential components required to create engaging, real-time, virtual environments: (1) Representations of the physical environment adapted to the needs of autonomous behavior programming in urban settings, and (2) An interpreted scripting language for online programming of scenario control processes.;I introduce the Environment Description Framework (EDF) and the Scenario Description Language (SDL) as parts of an integrated system to address intertwined problems of modeling behaviors and scenarios in structured, urban environments. We create autonomous behaviors that model the dynamic entities commonly found in these environments: traffic lights, motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. We use the same framework to model scenario directors responsible for orchestrating the actions of multiple, autonomous behaviors.;The EDF defines a road and intersection based representation that supports programming of autonomous agents in real-time virtual environments. As its core function, EDF gives structure and meaning to physically-based components while overlaying logical and spatial relationship information on the geometric structure of the environment. Our environment model is distinct in that it embeds behavioral constraints and inter-object relationships into the environment structure.;SDL is used for interactive modeling and prototyping of scenario directors in real-time virtual environments. SDL is an interpreted scripting language that translates scenario directives into state machines which are then inserted into the simulation execution framework. SDL advances standard scripting languages by clearly separating statements that describe what happens from statements that determine when things happen. SDL is tightly bound to simulation activity and forms a glue between the EDF, autonomous behaviors, and the scenario directors that influence the environment. |
