Avatars 4 All – An Avatar Generation Toolchain

The work-in-progress paper presents an application driven approach to create a versatile toolchain to create avatars. It targets the lack of an economic solution that enables the integration of avatars on multiple platforms and multiple devices. The requirements are based on Active and Assisted Living (AAL) domain-specific research and application-experiences of avatar-based user-interaction in the last decade. The created toolchain consists of phases: i) pre-processing, ii) processing and iii) optional post-processing. To achieve a high level of anthropomorphism not only the visual representation and synchronized voice is required but also combined movements, emotions and in particular affective reactions on the user’s behavior. The flexible toolchain enables an integration of ongoing and future improvements. The first results are promising and show that an economic but high-quality solution that can be integrated easily in different services can be developed.