Below is a list of Character Engines I compiled a long time ago:
Open-source
1) The EMBR project (http://embots.dfki.de/EMBR/)
2) Ogre3D- www.ogre3d.com. An open Source real-time 3D engine but without any kind of web player for content delivery.
Real-Time engines
1) Haptek - www.haptek.com The full suite of tools is the range of 7,0000-10,000 USD
2) Charamel - http://www.charamel.de/. A German avatar company, with very realistic characters but also very expensive tools. A very interesting product of this company, is the Charavirld that allows actual actors to controls Virtual characters in real-time. They ask 10,000 Euros for their main development platform along with the player. However, for research purposes they offer a 6 month demo license for only 300 Euros
3) QEDSOFT - http://www.qedsoft.com. A french company with a very interesting real-time 3D engine. Although I am not sure, their tools must be very expensive.
Real-time but without a real-time web player
1) DA Group - http://www.digital-animations.com/. The creators of Ananova. The company offers a range of real-time content creation tools but there is no player for real-time delivery.
2) Codebaby - http://www.codebaby.com/. A canadian company offering 3D characters through flash.
3) Cantoche - http://www.cantoche.com/. A french company with cartoon-like avatars again relying onto flash for content delivery.
4) VCom - http://www.vcom3d.com. An amazing technology for 3D character creations again using flash for content delivery
5) IMS Interactive - http://www.ims3d.com/ The company uses shockwave 3D for content delivery
6) Visage - http://www.visagetechnologies.com. A Swidish company with an interesting technology but without a web player for content delivery
7) Virtuoz- http://www.virtuoz.com. Another French company
8)SimGraphics - http://www.simg.com. A California company using a Wizard-Of-Oz aporoach for brining 3D characters to life.
Non real-time engines (Psedo 3D)
1) Guile 3D - www.guile3d.com. Recently the company created Denish a 3D photorealistic character with amazing visuals. There is no information for any kind of Web player for content delivery
2) Media Semantics - http://www.mediasemantics.com/. A very interesting and cheap technology using XML for character control and flash for content delivery
3) Gizmoz - http://www.gizmoz.com/. A photorealistic technology using flash for content delivery
4) http://www.karigirl.com. A virtual girlfriend
Face animation only
1) Crazytalk - http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/. A face-only creating tool using mainly flash for content delivery
2) http://www.lifemi.com/. Another face-only company using flash for web-content delivery
3) FaceFX-http://www.oc3ent.com/. A face-only tool mainly used for game development
Avatar communities
1) SecondLife http://secondlife.com/ Everyone knows secondlife
2) The Bluemars project (http://www.bluemarsonline.com/). In terms of graphics blue mars is far far better than SL. Download the installer (be carefull is massive 1,01 GB) and try it. The 3D worlds are simply AMAZING.... (that's me avatar in BM by the way)
3) http://www.imvu.com/. Very similar to Second Life with far more amazing graphics
4)Google Lively - http://www.lively.com. A rather unsuccesfull attempt of google to mimic secondlife
5) Soon Startrek online - http://www.startrekonline.com/
6) Entropia Universe. Mainly for Sci-Fi funs http://www.entropiauniverse.com/index.var
7) ActiveWorlds - http://www.activeworlds.com/
8) Kaneva - https://www.kaneva.com
9) The new Amsterdam - https://www.kaneva.com
Character Languages
Several attempts have been made to standarize avatar creation. Currently there are two major trends, one in Japan and the other in the Western World
1) Behaviour Markup language - http://wiki.mindmakers.org/projects:bml:main
2) Multimodal Presentation Markup Language 3D (MPML3D) -
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