Applications and Games UIST’13, October 8–11, 2013, St. Andrews, UK BodyAvatar: Creating Freeform 3D Avatars using First-Person Body Gestures Yupeng Zhang1,2, Teng Han1,3, Zhimin Ren1,4, Nobuyuki Umetani1,5, Xin Tong1, Yang Liu1, Takaaki Shiratori1, Xiang Cao1,6 1Microsoft Research Asia, 2University of Science and Technology of China, 3University of Bristol, 4University of North Carolina, 5The University of Tokyo, 6Lenovo Research & Technology
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[email protected] (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) Figure 1. Creating a 3D butterfly using BodyAvatar. (a)(a) ScanScan thethe initialinitial shape.shape. (b)(b) DragDrag antennas.antennas. (c)(c) SweepSweep wings.wings. (d)(d) SculptSculpt aa bigbig belly.belly. (e)(e) GrowGrow legs.legs. (f(f) Paint color. ABSTRACT thesethese avatarsavatars cancan nownow directlydirectly mimicmimic players’players’ bodybody BodyAvatar is a Kinect-based interactive system that movement, making the experience ever more immersive. allows users without professional skills to create freeform These 3D avatars are usually designed by professional 3D avatars using body gestures. Unlike existing gesture- game artists, with only limited player customization based 3D modeling tools, BodyAvatar centers around a available such as by selecting from a collection of first-person “you’re the avatar” metaphor, where the user predesigned body parts, colors, and accessories. However, treats their own body as a physical proxy of the virtual if one likes to be more creative and build an imaginary 3D avatar. Based on an intuitive body-centric mapping, the user character of non-predefined forms as their avatar, they performs gestures to their own body as if wanting to modify usually have to master complex 3D modeling software, it, which in turn results in corresponding modifications to much beyond the skills of typical game players.