The World of Virtual Actors

The long-term objective of our research is the visualization of the simulation of the behavior of realistic human beings, called synthetic actors, in a given environment, interactively decided by the animator. The ultimate reason for developing realistic-looking synthetic actors is to be able to use them in virtually any scene that recreates the real world. However, a virtual scene-beautiful though it may be-is not complete without people.... Virtual people, that is. Scenes involving synthetic actors imply many complex problems we have been solving for several years (Magnenat-Thalmann and Thalmann 1991). Behavioral techniques make possible the automating of high-level control of actors such as path planning. By changing the parameters ruling this automating, it is possible to give a different personality to each actor. This behavioral approach is a major step relatively to the conventional motion control techniques. Another complex objective is modeling human facial anatomy exactly, including movements to satisfy both structural and functional aspects of simulation. In order to improve the realism of synthetic actors, there are two important features to render: hair and clothes. Realistic hair has long been an unresolved problem because the great number of geometrical primitives involved and the potential diversity of the curvature of each strand of hair make it a formidable task to manage. Dressing synthetic actors with complex clothes is also a challenge. It is somewhat difficult