Animating With a Self-organizing Population the Reconstruction of Medieval Mértola

Abstract

This paper provides a contribution to the field of historical simulations of the past. Throughout this document, we will describe a novel model to animate these simulations with autonomous characters exhibiting heterogeneous and spontaneous behaviours and we will discuss a case study, the simulation of the medieval village of Mértola, in the South of Portugal. We will first detail the work of construction of the urban layout. Using manual modeling combined with procedural generation, we have generated a virtual space containing some of the military structures, such as the defensive walls and the watchtower in the river, as well as some of the civilian housing inside the protection of the walls. Following, we will describe the virtual population inhabiting the space composed of autonomous individuals dressed with historical rigour. These inhabitants of the virtual city, are equipped with limited intelligence and personality traits which allows them to self-organize, interact with each other and at the local market. They communicate with their fellow citizens in the narrow streets of the village using expressive gestures and postures that convey their inner emotional states.