Orientadores: Leo Pini Magalhães, Jose Mario De Martino / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T02:00:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Correa_Renata_M.pdf: 4570462 bytes, checksum: c427bcfe94559d86730c51711bd67985 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: A crescente busca pelo realismo em personagens virtuais encontrados em diversas aplicações na indústria do cinema, no ensino, jogos, entre outras, é a motivação do presente trabalho. O trabalho descreve um modelo de animação que emprega a estratégia biomecânica para o desenvolvimento de um protótipo computacional, chamado SABiom. A técnica utilizada baseia-se na simulação de características físicas da face humana, tais como as camadas de pele e músculos, que são modeladas de forma a permitir a simulação do comportamento mecânico do tecido facial sob a ação de forças musculares. Embora existam vários movimentos produzidos por uma face, o presente trabalho restringiu-se às simulações dos movimentos de expressões faciais focalizando os lábios. Para validar os resultados obtidos com o SABiom, comparou-se as imagens do modelo virtual obtidas através do protótipo desenvolvido com imagens obtidas de um modelo humano / Abstract: The increasing search for realism in virtual characters found in' many applications as movies, education, games, so on, is the motivation ofthis thesis. The thesis describes an animation model that employs the biomechanics strategy for the development of a computing prototype, called SABiom. The method used is based on simulation of physical features of the human face, such as layers of the skin and musc1es, that are modeled for simulation of the mechanical behavior of the facial tissue under the action of muscle forces. Although there are several movements produced by a face, the current work limits itself to the simulations of the facial expressions focusing the lips. To validate the results obtained from SABiom, we compared the images of the virtual model with images from a human model / Mestrado / Engenharia de Computação / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

Den här uppsatsen undersöker vikten av fyra av Disneys 12 animationsprinciper i ansiktsanimation för 3D. De principer som undersöks är Anticipation, Followthrough and Overlapping action, Appeal och Secondary action. Detta prövas genom att först skapa en originalanimation, där alla Disneys animationsprinciper används, och därefter skapa fyra ytterligare, separata, animationer där en av detidigare nämnda principerna tas bort. Dessa animationer visades sedan för sex testpersoner som därefter fick svara frågor i en intervju. Det märktes tydligt att alla av de fyra testade principerna är viktiga för en animation, dock var avsaknaden av Appeal eller Secondary action tydligast. / This bachelor-thesis discusses the importance of four of Disney’s 12 animation principles in 3D facial animation. The principles discussed are Anticipation, Followthrough and Overlapping action, Appeal and Secondary Action. This is done by first constructing a standard animation, using all of Disney’s animation principles, and then creating four additional, separate, animations by removing the usage of one of the afore mentioned principles at the time. Six test subjects then view the animations and answer a series of questions in an interview format. We found that all four of the tested principles are important to an animation, but that out of the four it was the most obvious when either Appeal or Secondary Action was omitted.

Context. Real time rendering has many challenges to overcome, one of them being character realism. One way to move towards realism is to use wrinkle maps. Although already used in several games, there might be room for improvement, common practice suggests using two wrinkle maps, however, if this number can be reduced both texture usage and workload might be reduced as well. Objectives. To determine whether or not it is possible to reduce the number of wrinkle maps from two to one without having any significant impact on the perceived realism of a character. Methods. After a base character model was created, a setup in Maya were made so that dynamic wrinkles could be displayed on the character using both one and two wrinkle maps. The face were animated and rendered, displaying emotions using both techniques. A two-alternative forced choice experiment was then conducted where the participants selected which implementation displaying the same facial expression and having the same lighting condition they perceived as most realistic. Results. Results showed that some facial expressions had more of an impact of the perceived realism than others, favoring two wrinkle maps in every case where there was a significant difference. The expressions with the most impact were the ones that required different kinds of wrinkles at the same area of the face, such as the forehead, where one variant of wrinkles run at a more vertical manner and the other variant runs horizontally along the forehead. Conclusions. Using one wrinkle map can not fully replicate the effect of using two when it comes to realism. The difference on the implementations are dependant on the expression being displayed.

Facial animation is an integral and increasing part of 3D games. This study investigates how the two most common methods of 3D facial animation compare to each other. The goal of this study is to summarize the situation and to provide animators and software developers with relevant recommendations. The two most utilized methods of facial animation; morph target animation and bone driven animation are examined with their strong and weak aspects presented. The investigation is based on literature analysis as well as a comparative case study approach which was used for comparing multiple formal and informal sources according to seven parameters such as: performance, production time, technical limitations, details and realism, ease of usability, cross platform compatibility and common combinations of systems. The strengths and weaknesses of the two methods of 3D facial animation are compared and discussed followed by a conclusion part which present recommendation to which is the preferable method to use under different circumstances. In some cases, the results are inconclusive due to a lack of data.  It is concluded that a combination of morph target and bone driven animation will give the most artistic control if time is not limited.

Yes / In this work we propose a talking head system for animating facial expressions using a template face generated from Partial Differen- tial Equations (PDEs). It uses a set of preconfigured curves to calculate an internal template surface face. This surface is then used to associate various facial features with a given 3D face object. Motion retargeting is then used to transfer the deformations in these areas from the template to the target object. The procedure is continued until all the expressions in the database are calculated and transferred to the target 3D human face object. Additionally the system interacts with the user using an artificial intelligence (AI) chatterbot to generate response from a given text. Speech and facial animation are synchronized using the Microsoft Speech API, where the response from the AI bot is converted to speech.

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To understand what modality affects the perception of emotion is interesting since it would help us get closer to understanding and dissecting emotions. Earlier research has shown that body motions can help disambiguate ambiguous (determining something vaguely presented) facial expressions but there is no study that examines the possibility of facial expressions to affect the perception of body motion. That is why this study aims to examine if facial expressions can affect the perception of full body emotions. This is done with a perceptual experiment in which 22 subjects were exposed to stimuli consisting of scenes with virtual characters expressing emotions (see figure 1). It was concluded that the facial expression does affect the perception of joined valence within the group of characters and it is thereby proven that not only body motions can help disambiguating ambiguous facial expressions but that facial expressions can help disambiguating ambiguous body motions and alter the perception of distinct body motions perceived as either positive or negative without face and hands showing. It is also concluded that perceived trustworthiness is affected by the valence of the facial expression, which supports recent studies conducted which aimed to find out what makes for a trustworthy and dominant face with the help of valence as a factor. The perceived relationship within the group is also examined as well as the dominance of the group as a whole but neither gave results clear enough to make any conclusions except that positive valence affects the perceived relationship within the group as closer. The study is conducted using virtual agents but is meant to help better understand people in everyday situations.

The topic of this dissertation is the anatomical, psychological, and cultural examination of a human face in order to effectively construct an anatomy-driven 3D virtual face customization and action model. In order to gain a broad perspective of all aspects of a face, theories and methodology from the fields of art, engineering, anatomy, psychology, and cultural studies have been analyzed and implemented. The computer generated facial customization and action model were designed based on the collected data. Using this customization system, culturally-specific attractive face in Korean popular culture, “kot-mi-nam (flower-like beautiful guy),” was modeled and analyzed as a case study. The “kot-mi-nam” phenomenon is overviewed in textual, visual, and contextual aspects, which reveals the gender- and sexuality-fluidity of its masculinity. The analysis and the actual development of the model organically co-construct each other requiring an interwoven process. Chapter 1 introduces anatomical studies of a human face, psychological theories of face recognition and an attractive face, and state-of-the-art face construction projects in the various fields. Chapter 2 and 3 present the Bezier curve-based 3D facial customization (BCFC) and Multi-layered Facial Action Model (MFAF) based on the analysis of human anatomy, to achieve a cost-effective yet realistic quality of facial animation without using 3D scanned data. In the experiments, results for the facial customization for gender, race, fat, and age showed that BCFC achieved enhanced performance of 25.20% compared to existing program Facegen , and 44.12% compared to Facial Studio. The experimental results also proved the realistic quality and effectiveness of MFAM compared with blend shape technique by enhancing 2.87% and 0.03% of facial area for happiness and anger expressions per second, respectively. In Chapter 4, according to the analysis based on BCFC, the 3D face of an average kot-mi-nam is close to gender neutral (male: 50.38%, female: 49.62%), and Caucasian (66.42-66.40%). Culturally-specific images can be misinterpreted in different cultures, due to their different languages, histories, and contexts. This research demonstrates that facial images can be affected by the cultural tastes of the makers and can also be interpreted differently by viewers in different cultures.

M.Sc (Computer Science) / Facial modelling and animation is considered one of the most challenging areas in the animation world. Since Parke and Waters’s (1996) comprehensive book, no major work encompassing the entire field of facial animation has been published. This thesis covers Parke and Waters’s work, while also providing a survey of the developments in the field since 1996. The thesis describes, analyses, and compares (where applicable) the existing techniques and practices used to produce the facial animation. Where applicable, the related techniques are grouped in the same chapter and described in a chronological fashion, outlining their differences, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. The thesis is concluded by exploratory work towards a talking head for Northern Sotho. Facial animation and lip synchronisation of a fragment of Northern Sotho is done by using software tools primarily designed for English. / Computing

Human communication is inherently multimodal. The information conveyed through body language, facial expression, gaze, intonation, speaking style etc. are all important components of everyday communication. An issue within computer science concerns how to provide multimodal agent based systems. Those are systems that interact with users through several channels. These systems can include Virtual Humans. A Virtual Human might for example be a complete creature, i.e. a creature with a whole body including head, arms, legs etc. but it might also be a creature with only a head, a Talking Head. The aim of the Virtual Human Markup Language (VHML) is to control Virtual Humans regarding speech, facial animation, facial gestures and body animation. These parts have previously been implemented and investigated separately, but VHML aims to combine them. In this thesis VHML is verified, validated and evaluated in order to reach that aim and thus VHML is made more solid, homogenous and complete. Further, a Virtual Human has to communicate with the user and even though VHML supports a number of other ways of communication, an important communication channel is speech. The Virtual Human has to be able to interact with the user, therefore a dialogue between the user and the Virtual Human has to be created. These dialogues tend to expand tremendously, hence the Dialogue Management Tool (DMT) was developed. Having a toolmakes it easier for programmers to create and maintain dialogues for the interaction. Finally, in order to demonstrate the work done in this thesis a Talking Head application, The Mystery at West Bay Hospital, has been developed and evaluated. This has shown the usefulness of the DMT when creating dialogues. The work that has been accomplished within this project has contributed to simplify the development of Talking Head applications.