This paper presents a powerful animation engine for developing applications with embodied
animated agents called Maxine. The engine, based on open source tools, allows
management of scenes and virtual characters, and pays special attention to multimodal and
emotional interaction with the user. Virtual actors are endowed with facial expressions, lip-
synch, emotional voice, and they can vary their answers depending on their own emotional
state and the relationship with the user during conversation. Maxine virtual agents have …