Abstract

This paper presents a framework for creating realistic virtual characters that can be delivered via the Internet and interactively controlled in a WebGL enabled web-browser. Four-dimensional performance capture is used to capture realistic human motion and appearance. The captured data is processed into efficient and compact representations for geometry and texture. Motions are analysed against a high-level, user-defined motion graph and suitable inter- and intra-motion transitions are identified. This processed data is stored on a webserver and downloaded by a client application when required. A Javascript-based character animation engine is used to manage the state of the character which responds to user input and sends required frames to a WebGL-based renderer for display. Through the efficient geometry, texture and motion graph representations, a game character capable of performing a range of motions can be represented in 40-50 MB of data. This highlights the potential use of four-dimensional performance capture for creating web-based content.

Paper

Online Interactive 4D Character Animation
Marco Volino, Peng Huang and Adrian Hilton
ACM SIGGRAPH Web3D Conference 2015



Demo

Please visit the demo site for interactive demonstrations as described in the paper.

Data

Data used in this work can be found in the CVSSP Data Repository.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the EU FP7 Project RE@CT: Immersive production and delivery of interactive 3D content and EPSRC/BBC industrial case studentship award '3D Video Editing'.