The 1st International Conference on Virtual Storytelling took place on September 27-28, 2001, in Avignon (France) in the prestigious Popes' Palace. Despite the tragic events of September 11 that led to some last-minute cancellations, nearly 100 people from 14 different countries attended the 4 invited lectures given by international experts, the 13 scientific talks and the 6 scientific demonstrations. Virtual Storytelling 2003 was held on November 20-21, 2003, in Toulouse (France) in the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum "Les Abattoirs." One hundred people from 17 different countries attended the conference composed of 3 invited lectures, 16 scientific talks and 11 posters/demonstrations. Since autumn 2003, there has been strong collaboration between the two major virtual/digital storytelling conference series in Europe: Virtual Storytelling and TIDSE (Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment). Thus the conference chairs of TIDSE and Virtual Storytelling decided to establish a 2 year turnover for both conferences and to join the respective organizers in the committees. For the third edition of Virtual Storytelling, the Organization Committee chose to extend the conference to 3 days so that more research work and applications could be be presented, to renew the Scientific and Application Board, to open the conference to new research or artistic communities, and to call for the submission of full papers and no longer only abstracts so as to make a higher-level selection.

In September 2001, we organized the 1st International Conference on Virtual Sto- telling in Avignon, France. This was the ?rst international scienti?c event entirely - voted to the new discipline that links the ancient human art of storytelling to the latest high technologies of the Virtual Reality era. Since this date, technology has not slowed its course. We all know that personal computers are even more powerful, but there have been huge advances in graphics boards.These arenowprogrammableandcan renderin realtime hugequantitiesof data as well as special effectsthat until recently requireda dedicatedgraphicssuperworks- tion. Applications that were in the research lab have now come to market. 3D Virtual Humans, the heroes of today's video games, are taking their ?rst steps on e-business Web sites. These will be the stars of tomorrow. New topics are being intensively - searched, especially, mixed and enhanced realities - the art of combining synthesized with real worlds. This evolution raises many technical, applicational, artistic and even ethical qu- tions.Theoccasionofthe2ndInternationalConferenceonVirtualStorytellingprovided an excellentopportunityto onceagaingatherresearchersfromthe scienti?c, artistic and industrialcommunitiestodemonstratenewmethodsandtechniques.Thiswasthevenue to show the latest results, and exchange concepts and ideas about the use of Virtual - ality technologiesfor creating, populating, renderingand interactingwith stories, wh- ever their form, be it theatre, movie, cartoon, advertisement, puppet show, multimedia work, video games, etc.

The story is the richest heritage of human civilizations. One can imagine the ?rst stories being told, several thousand centuries ago, by wise old men huddled around camp?res. Since this time, the narrative process has been considerably developed and enriched: sounds and music have been added to complement the speech, while scenery and theatrical sets have been created to enhance the story environment. Actors, dancers, and technicians have replaced the lone storyteller. The story is no longer the sole preserve of oral narrative but can be realized in book, theatrical, dance, or movie form. Even the audience can extend up to several million individuals. And yet in its many forms the story lies at the heart of one of the world's most important industries. The advent of the digital era has enhanced and accelerated this evolution: image synthesis, digital special e?ects, new Human-Computer interfaces, and the Internet allow one not only to realize more sophisticated narrative forms but also to create new concepts such as video gaming and virtual environments. The art of storytelling is becoming evermore complex. Virtual reality o?ers new tools to capture, and to interactively modify the imaginary environment, in ever more intuitive ways, coupled with a maximum sensory feedback. In fact, virtual reality technologies o?er enhanced and exciting production possibilities for the creation and non-linear manipulation in real time, of almost any story form. This has lead to the new concept of Virtual Storytelling.