| KEYWORD |
GR-09 - GRAphics and INtelligent Systems - GRAINS
eXtended Reality technologies for Computer Animation
keywords COMPUTER ANIMATION, HUMAN-MACHINE INTERACTION, VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY
Reference persons ALBERTO CANNAVO', FABRIZIO LAMBERTI
Research Groups GR-09 - GRAphics and INtelligent Systems - GRAINS
Thesis type RESEARCH THESIS
Description Generating computer animations, particularly of virtual characters, is a very labor-intensive task, which requires animators to operate with sophisticated interfaces. Hence, researchers continuously experiment with alternative interaction paradigms that could possibly ease the above task. Among others, the use of XR represents a valid alternative to traditional interfaces (based on mouse and keyboard) since it can make interactions more expressive and intuitive. However, although the literature proposes several solutions leveraging XR to solve different computer graphics challenges, generally, these solutions are not fully integrated into the computer animation pipeline or were not designed to support collaborative working.
The objective of this thesis proposal is to design and develop tools integrated in Blender that allow animators to produce and edit 3D character animations, possibly considering alternative interfaces. Related works have been proposed in the literature. For example, in [1], a system was proposed by the Disney research lab to support collaborative animations through a Mixed Reality system. Additional examples for authoring contents, 3D modeling, or directing actors in virtual scenes have been proposed in [2-4]. However, according to a recent survey [5], it was not possible to identify prior initiatives that make use of XR and collaborative environments to produce computer animations. This research gap is probably due to the number of challenges that researchers have to face when approaching the design of collaborative AR/VR systems [6]. The thesis could envisage scenarios that combine VR and AR to foster collaboration among the animators.
Related works:
[1] Pan, Ye, and Kenny Mitchell (Disney Research). "PoseMMR: a collaborative mixed reality authoring tool for character animation." 2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW). IEEE, 2020
[2] Nebeling, Michael, et al. "Xrdirector: A role-based collaborative immersive authoring system." Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2020.
[3] Larpkiattaworn, Noppasorn, et al. "Multiuser Virtual Reality for Designing and Editing 3D Models." International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, Cham, 2020.
[4] Wang, Cheng Yao, et al. "VideoPoseVR: authoring virtual reality character animations with online videos." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6.ISS (2022): 448-467.
[5] Schäfer, Alexander, Gerd Reis, and Didier Stricker. "A Survey on Synchronous Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality Remote Collaboration Systems." ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) (2021).
[6] Krauß, Veronika, et al. "Current practices, challenges, and design implications for collaborative AR/VR application development." Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2021.
See also http://grains.polito.it/work.php
Deadline 15/01/2025
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