Enhancing Believability: Evaluating the Application of Delsarte's Aesthetic System to the Design of Virtual Humans

Candidate: Michael Nixon
Type: Master of Science (MSc), School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Date: November 24, 2009
Senior Supervisor: Magy Seif el-Nasr
Thesis: Download Thesis Document

Abstract

Since the first descriptions of virtual humans, realism and fidelity have been important concerns.  Their creators have been using behavioral and psychological models for personality and emotion to model them.  However, tehre still remains a gap between character modelling and the resulting portrayal by computer graphics.  One solution to this problem is to take advantage of procedural character creation techniques.  In order to enhance believability, it is important to provide a coordinated and consistent expression of body movements.
An artistic aesthetic system is one way to approach this, so in this thesis, I test Delsarte's system of expression.  First, I adapted Delsarte's system into a model for posing characters and reviewed it with experts.  Working with animators, I then developed short scenes and evaluated them by  having viewers rate the characters' traits.  The results indicate that Delsarte's system is a promising starting point for the creation of believable characters.