Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games - SIGGRAPH 2010 Advances in the real-time graphics research and the ever-increasing power of mainstream GPUs and consoles continues generating an explosion of innovative algorithms suitable for fast, interactive rendering of complex and engaging virtual worlds. Every year the latest video games display a vast variety of sophisticated algorithms resulting in ground-breaking 3D rendering pushing the visual boundaries and interactive experience of rich environments. The focus of this course lies in bridging the game development community and the state-of-the-art 3D graphics research, encouraging cross-pollination of knowledge for future games and other interactive applications. This course is the next installment in the now-established series of Siggraph courses on real-time rendering, bringing the newest and best of graphics practices and research from the game development community, and providing practical and production-proven algorithms.
Challenges of Immersion « Zha’s Virtual Musings Challenges of Immersion A major part of Second Life’s value is immersion. Second Life is at its most compelling when users fully enter the virtual world as participants engaging the space, not observers visiting it. This is not to revisit the false dichotomy of augmentation and immersion. It is almost impossible to log on to Second Life and not immerse to some degree. Immersion consists of several facets. Traditional web experiences The traditional web experience is different from the experience of visiting a virtual world. Singular Reading a web page, including most social media web pages is a singular experience. Asynchronous Facebook, Twitter, blog comments. Interstitial Experiences The singular, asynchronous nature of many web interactions makes them perfect interstitial activities. Most web pages and applications require little context, little planning and little time. Click and Type The most common things one does on the web is click or type. The Challenges of Immersion Like this:
Realistic Eye Modeling for 3D Characters by Krishnamurti Martins Costa I'm posting a very simple tutorial on how to model and apply shaders to get realistic eyes, the "windows of your character's soul". A lot of times, bad eyes can "kill" your character literally, even if it has the most perfect modeling of the world. The importance of the eyes is exactly this: give life to your character. Therefore, don't underestimate this very important step of CG character construction... if not, you've only created "puppets". There is a quite big camber in the cornea, in the iris area. That irregularity, that all of us have, can become a great problem for a CG character. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. ...in quads, cutting the mesh this way: 8. 9. ...shade mode. 10. next page >
The Teachable Agents Group @ Vanderbilt University EMBOTS: Embodied Agents Research Group VirtualConstructor (COHIBIT) At Volkwagen's Autostadt in Wolfsburg, two virtual characters, Jara and Taron, invite visitors to build model cars with real car pieces. Using camera and RFID technology for input, the two characters seamlessly interact with the real world. They are controlled using statecharts, modelled in our Scenemaker tool. The project was also presented at CeBIT-07. A cooperation with Augsburg University, Charamel and Autostadt. Researchers: Alassane Ndiaye, Patrick Gebhard, Michael Kipp, Martin Rumpler, Michael Schneider, Gernot Gebhard. DFKI project website Autostadt exhibit website Publications: Kipp, M., Kipp, K.H., Ndiaye, A. and Gebhard, P. (2006) Evaluating the Tangible Interface and Virtual Characters in the Interactive COHIBIT Exhibit In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2006), Springer, pp. 434-444.
Healthcare › CAE Caesar™ Preparing Nurses for Today’s Healthcare Environment Learn how nursing students and professionals are using healthcare simulation to master the fundamentals, retrain for new units and practice interdisciplinary communication. Featured: The University of Huddersfield in Huddersfield, United Kingdom Immersive Training for Lifesaving Heroes Learn how emergency medical services responders are using healthcare simulation in their training. Featured: WakeMed Center for Innovative Learning in North Carolina, USA Modeled Physiology and Challenging Scenarios for Medicine Learn how residents and physicians are using healthcare simulation to practice anesthesia, critical care, ultrasound assessment and surgical procedures. Featured: Leiden University in The Netherlands Advancing Clinical Competency and Patient Safety Learn how hospitals are using healthcare simulation to onboard and retrain staff, reduce errors and improve patient safety. Featured: Madeira Clinical Simulation Center in Madeira, Portugal
Modeller: 3D Face Generator 3D face modelling software for Windows. Create faces from one or more photographs, or at random. Edit faces in over 150 ways, including race, age and gender. Choose between different mesh structures and UV layouts. Export to most 3D file formats, complete with animation morphs. Overview Features Resources Evaluation Purchasing Licensing Legal Overview With our unique statistics-based technology, you can: Create highly realistic or caricatured faces at random from any race, gender and adult age group: Easily create a face from one or more photographs: ... goes to ... Edit faces by just clicking and dragging: Edit faces with over 150 powerful parametric controls, from race morphing the whole face to tweaking the nose shape: ... Apply one of over 50 skin 'detail' textures to the face you've created: Select the mesh and UV layout of your choice (or use your own with the Customizer): Instantly apply animation morphs and accessory models: Export your texture maps to JPEG, BMP, TGA or TIFF. Resources Legal
A New Window to the Face The human face is a complicated thing—powered by 52 muscles; contoured by the nose, eyebrows, and other features; and capable of an almost infinite range of expressions, from joy to anger to sorrow to puzzlement. Perhaps that is why realistic animation of the human face has been what Microsoft Research Asia scientist Xin Tong calls a “holy grail” of computer graphics. Decades of research in computer graphics have developed a number of techniques for capturing three-dimensional moving images of the human face. But all have flaws, capturing insufficient detail or failing to depict accurately a changing expression. Xin Tong Now, researchers at Microsoft Research Asia, led by Tong and working with Jinxiang Chai, a Texas A&M University professor, have developed a new approach to creating high-fidelity, 3-D images of the human face, one that depicts not only large-scale features and expressions, but also the subtle wrinkling and movement of human skin. That’s a big challenge, Tong says.