MMS Player: an open source software for parametric data-driven animation of Sign Language avatars
This tool addresses the problem of creating accessible and accurate sign language animations for deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, though it is incremental as it builds on existing gloss-based representations.
The paper introduces MMS-Player, an open-source software that synthesizes sign language animations using a novel MMS representation format, which enhances gloss-based methods by incorporating parallel execution, timing, and inflection details, and it is implemented in Python for Blender with support for video rendering and 3D export.
This paper describes the MMS-Player, an open source software able to synthesise sign language animations from a novel sign language representation format called MMS (MultiModal Signstream). The MMS enhances gloss-based representations by adding information on parallel execution of signs, timing, and inflections. The implementation consists of Python scripts for the popular Blender 3D authoring tool and can be invoked via command line or HTTP API. Animations can be rendered as videos or exported in other popular 3D animation exchange formats. The software is freely available under GPL-3.0 license at https://github.com/DFKI-SignLanguage/MMS-Player.