This arrangement makes it difficult for the participants to tell who is talking to whom, due to lack of eye contact and sense of immersion. By enhancing the capabilities of network servers and adding intelligence to client terminals, the quality of the audio-visual communication can be improved. We have been implementing a prototype that uses human-like characters, known as avatars, to vividly represent the users in the same immersive environment. With a video camera, information about the gaze, head orientation, and hand gestures of each participant is sent to others and used to render the avatar representing this participant. The voice of each participant is used to animate lip sync of the corresponding avatar.
Directional sound is used to further enhance the sense of immersion.
See the NetICE video .