Social Virtual Reality platforms enable users to embody avatars and interact in virtual worlds. While research suggests that full-body avatar representations are generally preferred, high behavioral fidelity in avatar animations can be hard to achieve. Hardware-based tracking can be particularly effective but is costly, whereas Inverse Kinematics (IK) is more affordable but less accurate, leading to less realistic motion. Recent neural network-based approaches have shown promise in improving IK-based animations by predicting natural movements; however, guaranteeing high levels of fidelity in avatar-to-avatar interactions, particularly those involving close contact, remains challenging even with those approaches. With the aim to address such an issue, this paper proposes a neural network-based refinement framework to enhance behavioral fidelity in close social interactions. To investigate its effectiveness, hugging has been selected as a use case. The framework, trained on motion capture data, has been evaluated via a user study, showing improved behavioral fidelity in avatar social interactions.

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Improving Fidelity of Close Social Interaction Animations in Social VR with a Machine Learning-Based Refinement Framework

  • Alessandro Visconti,
  • Roberta Macaluso,
  • Gabriele Di Bartolomei,
  • Davide Calandra,
  • Fabrizio Lamberti

摘要

Social Virtual Reality platforms enable users to embody avatars and interact in virtual worlds. While research suggests that full-body avatar representations are generally preferred, high behavioral fidelity in avatar animations can be hard to achieve. Hardware-based tracking can be particularly effective but is costly, whereas Inverse Kinematics (IK) is more affordable but less accurate, leading to less realistic motion. Recent neural network-based approaches have shown promise in improving IK-based animations by predicting natural movements; however, guaranteeing high levels of fidelity in avatar-to-avatar interactions, particularly those involving close contact, remains challenging even with those approaches. With the aim to address such an issue, this paper proposes a neural network-based refinement framework to enhance behavioral fidelity in close social interactions. To investigate its effectiveness, hugging has been selected as a use case. The framework, trained on motion capture data, has been evaluated via a user study, showing improved behavioral fidelity in avatar social interactions.