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Welcome to the ICT Virtual Human Toolkit Website.

The ICT Virtual Human Toolkit is a collection of modules, tools and libraries that allow users, authors and developers to create their own virtual humans. This software is being developed at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies and can be licensed without cost for academic research purposes.

Download Virtual Human Toolkit

News

  • May 31 2012 - An exciting new version of the toolkit is now available, offering the MultiSense framework, the Rapport research platform and the SBMonitor tool. [[MultiSense]] is a perception framework that enables multiple sensing and understanding modules to interoperate simultaneously, broadcasting data through the Perception Markup Language. MultiSense currently contains [http://multicomp.ict.usc.edu/?s=gavam&x=0&y=0 GAVAM], [http://web.mac.com/jsaragih/FaceTracker/FaceTracker.html CLM] and [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/ FAAST] which you can use with webcam or Kinect. The [[Rapport]] agent is a “virtual human listener” providing nonverbal feedback based on human nonverbal and verbal input. It has been used in a variety of international studies related to establishing rapport between real and virtual humans. Finally, the SBMonitor is a stand-alone tool for easy debugging of SmartBody applications, including testing available (facial) animations, gazes and more complex BML commands.
  • Mar 2 2012 - A minor release of the toolkit is now available, updating the Unity version to 3.5 as well as providing incremental changes to the Unity/SmartBody debug tools in the Unity Editor (VH menu in Unity).
  • Dec 22 2011 - Happy holidays! The latest release of the toolkit includes the ability to interrupt Brad, improved support for higher resolutions, and a fix for text-to-speech not working properly. See [[Release Notes]] for details.
  • Aug 10 2011 - A new version of the toolkit has been released, offering support for the free version of Unity 3D, meaning you can now create your own scenes for Brad. You can download Unity here: http://www.unity3d.com. For instructions on how to use the Unity 3D Editor with the toolkit, see the [[Unity]] section. In addition, the user interaction has been improved; Unity now launches in full-screen automatically and users get visual feedback when talking to Brad. To directly talk to Brad, first make sure you have a microphone plugged in, wait for Brad to finish his introduction, and close the tips window. Now click and hold the left mouse button while asking Brad a question; release the mouse button when you are done talking. The recognized result will be displayed above Brad in white font (toggle on/off with the O key), and Brad will answer your question. It is adviced to update Java and ActiveMQ, which are provided with the 3rd party installer versions.For a full list of improvements, changes and fixes, see the [[Release Notes]].
  • May 4 2011 - We have released a new version of the toolkit, which adds prerecorded speech for Brad. This means Brad now has a human voice, instead of one of the various text-to-speech voices. You can now also interact with Brad through the Unity 3D renderer directly, by either typing in text or by speaking through a microphone. Please note that as of this release, Unity 3D is the default and only supported renderer. Gamebryo is deprecated and will not receive future updates. Ogre is an open source renderer which is provided as a basic example only. For more details on this release, see the [[Release Notes]]. If you have any questions and or comments, please use the toolkit [http://groups.google.com/group/vhtoolkit Google Groups].
  • Mar 28 2011 - Version 0.9.12.258 has been released, adding, amongst other things, subtitles, the capability for Brad to walk around, and smaller installers. If you are upgrading from an older version, please see [[Release Notes]] in order to ensure correct functionality.
  • Feb 25 2011 - Release 0.9.10.201 of the toolkit is now available [[Support|here]]. This release adds a Unity 3D renderer version, as well as a different default voice for Brad. For more details, see [[Release Notes]]. For feedback, see the toolkit [http://groups.google.com/group/vhtoolkit Google Groups].
  • Oct 8 2010 - We just released version 0.9.9.137 of the toolkit, which adds the capability to create custom language models. Several critical bugs have been fixed as well.
  • Sep 17 2010 - Version 0.9.7.107 of the toolkit has been released, adding support for the Festival text to speech engine.

News Archive

Toolkit Overview

Goal

The [http://www.usc.edu The University of Southern California] [http://www.ict.usc.edu  Institute for Creative Technologies]  (ICT) has created a Virtual Human Toolkit with the goal of reducing some the complexity inherent in creating virtual humans. Our toolkit is an ever-growing collection of innovative technologies, fueled by basic research performed at the ICT and its partners. The toolkit provides a solid technical foundation and modularity that allows a relatively easy way of mixing and matching toolkit technology with a research project's proprietary or 3rd-party software. Through this toolkit, ICT hopes to provide the virtual humans research community with a widely accepted platform on which new technologies can be built.

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