Performance Scripting Interface

Experimental user interface for creating performance scripts to control the Hanson Robotics Eva robot head. See:

• https://github.com/hansonrobotics/blender_api
• https://github.com/opencog/docker/tree/master/indigo/eva

Goal: Create a Web UI that will allow theatrical performance artists to script theatrical performances for the Eva head. An example of a simple theatrical performance might be ''When a someone enters the room, briefly glance thier way, give a faint smile, then resume with the previous activity.''

The output of the script should be sequences of ROS messages that control the Eva head (turn, look, smile), as well as the timing, pitch and modulation of speech.

Creating the above might be a relatively straight-forward prorammming task, were it not for one additional requirement: the scripts should be executable within the OpenCog Atomspace framework. This is because we want, as a long-range goal, for OpenCog to be able to control the robot behavior itself, starting with more basic Psi-Theory urges and desires, rather than having Eva be an animated puppet.

This means that the authoring tool needs to be able to work with not just some convenient scripting language, but it should work very explicitly with a certain OpenCog-based scripting language.

Status

This is version 0.0.1 of the project. Almost nothing is here yet. There's going to be lots of miscellaneous experiments and a mish-mash of code.

Running

• Use the scripts/eva.sh file, after adjusting paths in it for your installation. Or use the below:

• Start the webcam, pi_vision, and tf2 tracking nodes as usual.

• Start the Eva blender node, as usual.

• Start the cogserver.

• Load the scripts shown in scripts/eva.sh

• Start the opencog face-tracking node in the face_track directory.

Owyl implementation

The previous implementation used Owyl trees to represent behaviors. There was no GUI or API for this: the behaviors are hard-coded in python. It can be found here:

https://github.com/hansonrobotics/eva_behavior Here's a summary of the behaviors it scripts:

• If the scene was empty and someone arrives, Eva interacts with the new arrival. Start by showing 'surprised' expression.

• If Eva is currently interacting with someone, and someone else arrives, she will either (dice-roll): glance at the newcomer or ignore them. The probability of a glance increases if she has been interacting for a while.

• If the person she is interacting with leaves, show a frustrated emotion. Frustrated emotions are: sad, confused, recoil, surprised.

• If someone else leaves, glance at that last location, or ignore the departure.

• While interacting with someone: -- randomly display one of: happy, comprehending, engaged -- Ocasionally glance at other faces in the room. -- If the interaction has been long-running, then switch and pay attention to someone new

• If the room is empty: -- showed bored expression (one of bored, sad, happy) -- look around the room -- If room still empty, yawn, blink-sleepy -- Go to sleep. Periodically wake. Wake gestures: shake-2, shake-3, blink

Resources:

• Visual programming Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language

• The current Hanson robotics Web motors user interface: https://github.com/hansonrobotics/ros_motors_webui

• Psi Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psi-Theory