The effect of facial animation on a dancing character

An important part of creating a new and immersive interactive experience for a user is to have the perception that the virtual character is 'paying attention' to the user during the interaction. Such perceived attention could be derived from subtle movements such as the eye glancing towards the user or with larger movements such as turning its face or even its body towards the user. This understanding forms the basis for existing research models. Our work describes a user study that evaluates the subject's perception of dancing with a virtual character. We attempt to investigate the relationship and relevance of the facial expressions and eye gazing contact animations on a virtual character which moves vigorously as compared to the idle one (i.e. without facial expression). For this experiment, a virtual character is shown on the screen using stereoscopic projection, while the participant wears shutter glasses at all times during the user study. The observations of the subject about the realism and perceived interactivity of the character is tabulated through the data collected of the perceived opinions during the experiments. Other perceived factors such as the enjoyment of the experience and attractiveness of the virtual character are also considered.