Realistic Avatars and Autonomous Virtual Humans in VLNET Networked Virtual Environments

Networked Collaborative Virtual Environments (NCVE) have been a hot topic of research for some time now. However, most of the existing NCVE systems restrict the communication between the participants to text messages or audio communication. The natural means of human communication are richer than this. Facial expressions, lip movements, body postures and gestures all play an important role in our everyday communication. Part of our research effort in the field of Networked Collaborative Virtual Environments thrives to incorporate such natural means of communication in a Virtual Environment. This effort is mostly based on the use of realistically modeled and animated Virtual Humans. This paper discusses several ways to use virtual human bodies for facial and gestural communication within a Virtual Environment.