expressive textures
If a moving image is more expressive than words or than a still image, then an animated facial expression can explain more in depth the feelings of a virtual character. Facial animation has been used in many applications, from entertainment to research on virtual humans and tele-presence. The aim of most of the approaches is to achieve high degrees of realism of virtual characters and is supplemented by complex models of kinematics, muscle movement, movement of clothing as well as cognition and behavioral models. Video avatars and image-based techniques are also used for creating virtual humans. However, the complexity of the geometric and physically simulated facial models used by the above methods make them unsuitable for use in distributed collaborative virtual environments running on low bandwidth networks or over the internet. Therefore, the majority of approaches for such environments are using simplified models of virtual human, which the obvious disadvantage of lower degrees of realism.The Reflective Textures method, presented in this paper, makes use of textures of images of both synthetic faces or faces captured from video and of a simple low-polygon face/head model. It provides an interactive way of fine-tuning and adjusting the underlined model to allow a more realistic mapping for a specific facial image. Furthermore, it concentrates in creating facial expressions by manipulation of the texture. Facial Expressions such as Fear, Happiness, Melancholy or Surprise, blinking of the eyes and movement of the pupils is automatically achieved for any mapped facial image by the system.
facial expressions collaborative virtual environments character animation texture mapping