ERATO Proceedings Istanbul 2006.pdf - Odeon

generation of the virtual bodies has also to consider the total number of polygons used to create
the meshes in order to keep a balance between the 3D real-time simulation restrictions and the
skin deformation accuracy of the models (as more polygons deform better but are heavier to
simulate).
Figure 8: Examples of Roman theatre actor’s outfits [17] (left), 3D rendered low polygon Virtual Actors with
masks (right)
Once all the relevant information has been gathered, the modelling of 12 different low
polygon 3D virtual actors, ready for real time animation, with their corresponding musical
instruments masks, garments and props, has been accomplished according to the available
historical sources (samples depicted in figure 8). Finally the preparation of the simulated echoic
3D sound speeches and the recording of the motion captured movements to be applied to the
virtual actors, in order to re-enact a selected Roman play, will occur at a latter stage of the
project with the help of historians, archaeologists and scientific personnel. Following that, the
motion capture process will take place utilizing the VICON optical motion capture system
(www.vicon.com) with real persons re-enacting the play being recorded digitally.
Figure 9: rendering of the 3D low polygon virtual actors (left), first prototype of the Aspendos site simulated with the
Real Time virtual actors (centre and right).
After the needed post-processing the individual movements that correspond to the various
parts of the Play will be available as separate key-frame animations, ready to be applied to an H-
Anim created virtual actors. After that, the simulated echoic 3D sound speeches that correspond
to the verses of the Play will be matched with the body and facial animations. Thus the 2
essential parts of the Play (motion and speech) will be ready to be applied to the Virtual Actors
and other Virtual Characters (figure 9).
3.7 Body Modeling and animation
The first phase of our methodology is based entirely on the generation of human body models
that can be animated immediately by the modification of an existing reference generic model.
Our modeler builds on a template body model that has been designed primarily for real-time
animation applications. The model encapsulates all required structural components—bones and
skin attachment data that allow to animate the model at any time during the synthesis, through
skin attachment recalculation; landmarks and contours through which it remains measurable.
Our approach is based on examples [18] and consists of three major parts. First, each example
from the 3D range scanner is preprocessed so that the topology of all examples is identical.
Second, the system that we call the “modeling synthesizer” learns from these examples the