TY - JOUR
T1 - Render me real? Investigating the effect of render style on the perception of animated virtual humans
AU - McDonnell, Rachel
AU - Breidty, Martin
AU - Bülthoff, Heinrich H.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/7
Y1 - 2012/7
N2 - The realistic depiction of lifelike virtual humans has been the goal of many movie makers in the last decade. Recently, films such as Tron: Legacy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have produced highly realistic characters. In the real-time domain, there is also a need to deliver realistic virtual characters, with the increase in popularity of interactive drama video games (such as L.A. NoireTM or Heavy RainTM). There have been mixed reactions from audiences to lifelike characters used in movies and games, with some saying that the increased realism highlights subtle imperfections, which can be disturbing. Some developers opt for a stylized rendering (such as cartoon-shading) to avoid a negative reaction [Thompson 2004]. In this paper, we investigate some of the consequences of choosing realistic or stylized rendering in order to provide guidelines for developers for creating appealing virtual characters. We conducted a series of psychophysical experiments to determine whether render style affects how virtual humans are perceived. Motion capture with synchronized eye-tracked data was used throughout to animate custom-made virtual model replicas of the captured actors.
AB - The realistic depiction of lifelike virtual humans has been the goal of many movie makers in the last decade. Recently, films such as Tron: Legacy and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have produced highly realistic characters. In the real-time domain, there is also a need to deliver realistic virtual characters, with the increase in popularity of interactive drama video games (such as L.A. NoireTM or Heavy RainTM). There have been mixed reactions from audiences to lifelike characters used in movies and games, with some saying that the increased realism highlights subtle imperfections, which can be disturbing. Some developers opt for a stylized rendering (such as cartoon-shading) to avoid a negative reaction [Thompson 2004]. In this paper, we investigate some of the consequences of choosing realistic or stylized rendering in order to provide guidelines for developers for creating appealing virtual characters. We conducted a series of psychophysical experiments to determine whether render style affects how virtual humans are perceived. Motion capture with synchronized eye-tracked data was used throughout to animate custom-made virtual model replicas of the captured actors.
KW - Facial animation
KW - Motion Capture
KW - Perception
KW - Uncanny valley
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84869780495&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84869780495&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2185520.2185587
DO - 10.1145/2185520.2185587
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84869780495
VL - 31
JO - ACM Transactions on Graphics
JF - ACM Transactions on Graphics
SN - 0730-0301
IS - 4
M1 - 91
ER -