Human - Virtual Agent Interaction

Abstract: This thesis was carried out at Imagination Studios in Uppsala. IMS is a motion capture studio that alsodoes animation. Motion capture is the capturing of (generally) human motions to make 3Danimations look more realistic. In motion capture, the actors have to imagine the scene. The goal ofthis thesis is to help the motion capture actor by creating a tool that lets the actor interact with avirtual agent that represents his acting partner. Scenarios and a video sketch were created todescribe how the interaction can work. The Microsoft Kinect is used to capture the motions of theactor and recognize gestures. These gestures are then responded to by a virtual agent that isdisplayed in a 3D environment created in the Unreal Development Kit. Programming was done in C++and UnrealScript to make this solution work. Motions were recorded and applied to the virtual agentto create realistic animations that are played in response to the actor's gestures. The final product isan interactive application that can be used to immerse a person in an acting scenario.