Artanim is the inventor and continuously develops since 2015 the VR technology driving Dreamscape Immersive. This multi-user immersive platform combines a 3D environment – which can be seen and heard through a VR headset – with a real-life stage set incorporating haptic feedback elements.

The user’s movements are sparsely captured in real time and translated into a full-body animation thanks to a deep understanding of body mechanics. Contrary to other static position VR systems, the platform allows up to eight users to truly feel immersed in a VR scene. They are rendered as characters (avatars) inside a computer generated world where they can move physically, interact with objects and other players, and truly experience worlds previously accessible only in their imagination. The bodies of the users thus become the interface between the real and virtual worlds.

The platform combines the following features:

• Wireless: complete freedom of movement across large spaces.
• Social: interactive multi-user experiences within a shared environment or across connected pods.
• Accurate: full-body and physical objects tracking with less than 1 millimeter deviation.
• Real-time: zero discernible lag eliminating most concerns of motion sickness.
• Flexible: SDK allowing content creators to easily create experiences for this particular platform.

This platform is leveraged by Dreamscape Immersive through their worldwide location-based VR entertainment centers, as well as through educational and training programs and other enterprise solutions.

The platform was also used to produce VR_I, the first ever choreographic work in immersive virtual reality, as well as Geneva 1850, a time traveling experience and historical reconstruction into the Geneva of 1850.

The concept of presence can be understood as a synthesis of interrelated psychophysical ingredients where multiple perceptual dimensions intervene. A better understanding of how to impact specific aspects such as plausibility, the illusion that virtual events are really happening, co-presence, the illusion of being with others, or place illusion, the feeling of being there, is key to improve the quality of XR experiences. The availability and performance of advanced technologies will let us reach high levels of presence in XR, essential to get us closer than ever to the old VR dream: to be anywhere, doing anything, together with others from any place. The PRESENCE project will impact multiple dimensions of presence in physical-digital worlds, addressing three main challenges: i) how to create realistic visual interactions among remote humans, delivering high-end holoportation paradigms based on live volumetric video capturing, compression and optimization techniques under heterogeneous computation and network conditions; ii) how to provide realistic touch among remote users and synthetic objects, developing novel haptic systems and enabling spatial multi-device synchronization in multi-user scenarios; iii) how to produce realistic social interactions among avatars and agents, generating AI virtual humans, representing real users or AI agents.

The contribution of Artanim will focus on smart autonomous characters, which are able to generate physically-plausible behavior integrating the cues of avatars of human users or other autonomous characters in specific scenarios. Specific parameters will be studied, for the movement to respond plausibly to social cues such as interpersonal differences or to collaboration tasks. Interactive virtual agents may take into account the position of others to respect implicit proxemics rules by generating small step rotations, or if a user needs an object, the interactive virtual agents will grab and offer it.

Virtual Reality (VR) opens the possibility to develop a new kind of content format which, on one hand, is experienced as a rich narrative, just as movies or theater plays are, while on the other hand, it allows interaction with autonomous virtual characters. The experience would feel like having different autonomous characters unfold a consistent story plot, just as a movie or a theater play does, within an interactive VR simulation. Players could choose to participate in the events and affect some parts of the story, or just watch how the plot unfolds around them.

The main challenge to realize this vision is that current techniques for interactive character animation are designed for video games, and do not offer the subtle multi-modal interaction that VR users spontaneously expect.  The main goal of this project is to explore different techniques for interactive character animation that help creates interactive characters that can engage in a more compelling way with players. To achieve this goal, we use a combination of research techniques derived from computer graphics, machine learning and cognitive psychology.

Llobera J, Charbonnier C. Physics-based character animation and human motor control, Phys Life Rev, 46:190-219, 2023.

Llobera J, Jacquat V, Calabrese C, Charbonnier C. Playing the mirror game in virtual reality with an autonomous character, Sci Rep, 12:21329, 2022.
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Llobera J, Charbonnier C. Physics-based character animation for Virtual Reality, Open Access Tools and Libraries for Virtual Reality, IEEE VR Workshop, 2022 Best Open Source tool Award, March 2022.
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Llobera J, Booth J, Charbonnier C. Physics-based character animation controllers for videogame and virtual reality production, 14th ACM SIGGRAPH Conference on Motion, Interaction and Games, November 2021.
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Llobera J, Booth J, Charbonnier C. New Techniques on Interactive Character Animation, SIGGRAPH ’21: short course, ACM, New York, NY, USA, August 2021.

Llobera J, Charbonnier C. Interactive Characters for Virtual Reality Stories, ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (IMX \’21), ACM, New York, NY, USA, June 2021.
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