Embodied conversational agents are virtual characters that engage users in conversation with appropriate speech, gesture, and facial expression. The high cost of developing embodied conversational agents has led to a recent increase in open source agent platforms. In this paper, we present XNAgent, an open source platform for embodied conversational agents based on the XNA Framework. By leveraging the high-level class structure of the XNA Framework, XNAgent provides a compact implementation

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... is suitable both as a starting point for the development of a more advanced system and as a teaching tool for AI curricula. In this paper we describe how we created an embodied conversational agent in XNA using skeletal and morph animation, motion capture, and event-driven animation and how this process can facilitate the use of embodied conversational agents in the Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring.