Modeling visual attention is an important aspect of simulating realistic virtual humans. We argue that the virtual illusion of a moving body from the first person perspective can initiate a cascade of events, from the perception of the visual illusion to physiological activation that triggers other biological effects, such as the neuroendocrine stress response. We found a decreased salivary alpha-amylase concentration (a biomarker for the stress response) after the virtual training among the experimental group only, as well as a decreased subjective feeling of state anxiety (but no difference in heart rate). While sitting, 26 healthy young adults watched a virtual avatar running for 30 min from the first person perspective (experimental group), while another 26 participants watched the virtual body from the third person perspective (control group). Capitalizing on this evidence, we hypothesized that virtual training could also induce neuroendocrine effects that prompt a decreased psychosocial stress response, as occurs after physical training.

When a person is sitting and the virtual body runs, it is possible to measure physiological, behavioral and cognitive reactions that are comparable to those that occur during actual movement. Previous research involving healthy participants has reported that seeing a moving virtual body from the first person perspective induces the illusion of ownership and agency over that virtual body. All in all this paper attempts to convey why rigged avatars will be key to the future of VR and its wide adoption.

The second part presents the scientific evidence of the utility of using rigged avatars for embodiment but also for applications such as crowd simulation and entertainment. We cover the current main alternatives for face and body animation as well introduce upcoming capture methods. We divide this paper in two main parts: the first one gives an overview of the different methods available to create and animate avatars. Furthermore many research areas ranging from crowd simulation to neuroscience, psychology, or sociology have used avatars to investigate new theories or to demonstrate how they influence human performance and interactions. Avatars, virtual representations of humans, are widely used in VR applications. As part of the open sourcing of the Microsoft Rocketbox avatar library for research and academic purposes, here we discuss the importance of rigged avatars for the Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR, AR) research community.

Rocketbox libraries