ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of Smart Zones used to design credible, consistent, and interactive ambient life, involving autonomous and adaptive nonplayable character (NPCs). A Living Scene is a set of NPCs interacting with each other and with the players. Its aim is to give a feeling of life to a virtual environment, to give the player a sense of being there. To achieve this, the behaviors resulting from the Living Scene have to make sense in the context of the setting, location, story, and actions of the player. A Smart Zone is a concrete representation of a Living Scene that can be located in the environment and executed in a stand-alone way to manage the lifetime of the scene. The concept of Smart Zones is inspired by Smart Objects, which is often used in video games for managing agent–object interaction such as in The Sims.
