Virtual Human Representation and Communication in VLNET Networked Virtual Environment
Tolga Çapın, Igor Sunday Pandzic, Hansrudi Noser, Nadia Magnenat‐Thalmann, Daniël Thalmann · 1997
The pace in computing, graphics and networking technologies together with the demand from real-life applications made it a requirement to develop more realistic virtual environments (VEs). Realism not only includes believable appearance and simulation of the virtual world, but also implies the natural representation of participants. This representation fulfils several functions: - The visual embodiment of the user, - The means of interaction with the world, - The means of feeling various attributes of the world using the senses. The realism in participant representation involves two elements: believable appearance and realistic movements. This becomes even more important in multiuser networked virtual environments (NVE), as participants' representation is used for communication. A NVE can be defined as a single environment which is shared by multiple participants connected from a different host. The local program of the participants typically store the whole or a subset of the scene description, and they use their own avatars to move around the scene and render from their own viewpoint. This avatar representation in NVEs has crucial functions in addition to those of single-user virtual environments: - perception (to see if anyone is around) - localization (to see where the other person is) - identification (to recognize the person) - visualization of others' interest focus (to see where the person's attention is directed) - visualization of others' actions (to see what the other person is doing and what she means through gestures )