Towards the Holodeck: building emotional virtual humans for training

I describe a collaborative effort between members of the entertainment and research communities to advance the state of immersive training technology. Pulling together Hollywood's expertise in story, visual effects and production, with expertise in graphics, gaming, artificial intelligence, linguistics, cognitive science, and audio processing, a group of researchers, storytellers and graphic artists is trying to approximate the Holodeck (the ultimate training and entertainment device of the 24th century, as popularized by the TV series Star Trek).