VPARK - A Windows NT software platform for a virtual networked amusement park

Presents the VPARK (Virtual Park) system, which includes a networked virtual environment (NVE) system called W-VLNET and an “attraction building system” that is able to create and modify the attractions used in the NVE. Both systems have been developed in the Windows NT environment. The paper outlines the techniques for communication, scene management, facial and body animation, and general user interaction modules. The use of VRML97 and MPEG-4 SHNC is overviewed for the purpose of outlining the compatability of the system with other similar virtual reality systems. The software provides realistic virtual actors as well as sets of high-level actions that are applicable to them in real-time. Related issues on obtaining actor models and animating them in real time are presented. The creation process of an attraction incorporates assembling animation units through a timeline. Using this software, the users are able to bring their own scenario-based applications into a shared virtual environment

Crowds for interactive virtual environments

Branislav Ulicny

Crowds are part of our everyday experience; nevertheless, in virtual worlds they are still relatively rare. In this thesis we explore the challenges of bringing crowds into interactive virtual environments and the possible applications of real-time interactive crowds, for example, in the domains of virtual heritage and training systems. We address several topics including real-time generation of higher-level behaviors, lower-level motion control for many characters, management of variety, integration of crowds into virtual environments, interaction with virtual crowds and authoring of scenarios. In comparison with the other crowd modeling approaches, we focus on more complex behaviors of many agents in dynamic environments with possible user interaction. In our system a crowd is modeled as a collection of individuals which react to the environment, to other agents and to real human participants of the simulation and can have very different behaviors, both for one agent in different situations, and for many agents in the same situation. We emphasize the importance of variety as one of the most distinguishing features of the crowd simulations; we introduce the notion of levels-of-variety. We address as well the question of how to author crowd scenes in an efficient way. We introduce a novel approach to create complex scenes involving thousands of animated individuals in a simple and intuitive way. By employing a brush metaphor, analogous to the tools used in image manipulation programs, we can distribute, modify and control crowd members in real-time with immediate visual feedback. We demonstrate the validity of our behavior simulation approach with several case studies, where we use our crowd system to manage crowd behaviour in a virtual reality training system and virtual heritage reconstruction. The potential of our authoring approach is shown by authoring a scenario of a virtual audience in a theater and a scenario of a pedestrian crowd in a city.

EPFL2005

Real-time animation of realistic virtual humans

Amaury Aubel, Daniel Thalmann

The authors have been working on simulating virtual humans for several years. Until recently, these constructs could not act in real time. Today, however, many applications need to simulate in real time virtual humans that look realistic. They have invested considerable effort in developing and integrating several modules into a system capable of animating humans in real-time situations. This includes interactive modules for building realistic individuals and a texture-fitting method suitable for all parts of the head and body. Animating the body, including the hands and their deformations, is the key aspect of the system; to their knowledge, no competing system integrates all these functions. They also included facial animation, as demonstrated below with virtual tennis players. They have developed a single system containing all the modules needed for simulating real-time virtual humans in distant virtual environments (VEs). The system lets one rapidly clone any individual and animate the clone in various contexts. People cannot mistake virtual humans for real ones, but they think them recognizable and realistic

IEEE1998

Anyone for tennis?

Amaury Aubel, Daniel Thalmann

The authors present a virtual tennis game. They describe the creation and modeling of the virtual humans and body deformations, also showing the real-time animation and rendering aspects of the avatars. They focus on the animation of the virtual tennis ball and the behavior of a synthetic, autonomous referee who judges the tennis games. The networked, collaborative, virtual environment system is described with special reference to its interfaces to driver programs. They also mention the virtual reality (VR) devices that are used to merge the interactive players into the virtual tennis environment, together with the equipment and technologies employed for this exciting experience. They conclude with remarks on personal experiences during the game and on future research topics to improve parts of the presented system

MIT Press1999

Crowds for interactive virtual environments

Branislav Ulicny

EPFL2005