Narrative dialogues for educational installations

This paper presents ongoing research that aims at the development of software tools for the creation of interactive, narrative educational discussion groups of virtual characters. The tools shall also serve to investigate methods of intensifying the narrative experience of the user. Some details of the interaction management are presented. The challenge here was to develop a pragmatic and flexible module that offers and integrates different interaction technologies like gesture recognition, dedicated devices, and chatting, whilst the authoring remains accessible to non-programmers. The first application of the software will consist in creating educational museum installations.