Speech animation with behavioral contexts for application scenarios

A system, comprising:

• a speech animation server;
• and
• a client application in communication with the speech animation server,
• wherein the client application is operable to perform the following operations:
• sending a request for speech animation to the speech animation server, the request identifying data to be used to generate the speech animation, the speech animation being speech synchronized with facial expressions;
• receiving a response from the speech animation engine, the response identifying the generated speech animation;
• and
• using the generated speech animation to animate a talking agent displayed on a user interface of the client application;
• and wherein the speech animation server is operable to perform the following operations:
• receiving the request for speech animation from the client application;
• retrieving the data identified in the request, wherein the retrieved data includes a tag having a parameter corresponding to a desired emotion and a reference to an application scenario of the requesting client application, the application scenario corresponding to a behavioral context that includes a set of expressions that are appropriate to the particular application scenario;
• determining which application scenario prompted the request based on other data information included in the first request;
• generating the speech animation based on the parameter using the retrieved data and further using the set of expressions defined in the behavioral context;
• and
• sending the response identifying the generated speech animation to the client application.

A method of generating a speech animation comprising:

• receiving a request from a client application for a speech animation;
• identifying data to be used to generate the speech animation in the request, the data including a tag indicating a desired emotion and a reference to an application scenario of the requesting client application;
• assigning a behavioral context to the application scenario, the behavioral context including a set of expressions that are appropriate to the application scenario, wherein the reference of the data indicates the behavioral context;
• determining which application scenario prompted the request based on other data information included in the request;
• and
• generating the speech animation based on the tag and the reference.