Animation control for real-time virtual humans

putational representations of the human body-virtual humans-can be used to escape the constraints of presence, safety, and even physicality.Why are real-time virtual humans so difficult to construct?After all, anyone who can watch a movie can see marvelous synthetic animals, characters, and people.But they are typically created for a single scene or movie and are neither autonomous nor meant to engage in interactive communication with real people.What makes a virtual human human is not just a well-executed exterior design, but movements, reactions, self-motivated decision making, and interactions that appear "natural," appropriate, and contextually sensitive.Virtual humans designed to be able to communicate with real people need uniquely human abilities to show us their actions, intentions, and feelings, building a bridge of empathy and understanding.Researchers in virtual human characters seek methods to create digital people that share our human time frame as they act, communicate, and serve our applications.Still, many interactive and real-time applications already involve the portrayal of virtual humans, including:Engineering.Analysis and simulation for virtual prototyping and simulation-based design.Virtual conferencing.Teleconferencing, using virtual representations of participants to increase personal presence.Monitoring.Acquiring, interpreting, and understanding shape and motion data related to human movement, performance, activities, and intent.Virtual environments.Living and working in a virtual place for visualization, analysis, training, and even just the experience.Games.Real-time characters with actions, alternatives, and personality for fun and profit.Training.Skill development, team coordination, and decision making.Education.Distance mentoring, interactive assistance, and personalized instruction.Military.Simulated battlefield and peacekeeping operations with individual participants.Maintenance.Designing for such human factors and ergonomics as ease of access, disassembly, repair, safety, tool clearance, and visibility.Along with general industry-driven improvements in the underlying computer and graphical display technologies, virtual humans will enable quantum leaps in applications normally requiring personal and live human participation.The emerging MPEG-4 specification, for example, includes face-and body-animation parameters for real-time display synthesis.