Enhancing believability: evaluating the application of Delsarte's aesthetic system to the design of virtual humans

Characters play an important role in many interactive entertainment productions, including training simulations and computer and video games. Most current industry methods rely on heavy scripting, where voice acting, cut scene scripting, dialogue scripts, hand-coded animation routines, and hard-coded rules of behaviour are used to portray characters. Procedural animation is less expensive and time-consuming. However, there remains a gap between character models and their portrayal using computer graphics. In order to enhance believability, one must provide a coordinated and consistent expression of body movements. Delsarte’s system of expression is an artistic aesthetic system that can provide this so I evaluate it in this thesis. In order to compare it to a baseline, I had animators create first their own version, then follow Delsarte’s system. I then had viewers rate the characters’ traits. The results indicate that Delsarte’s system is a promising starting point for the creation of believable characters.