Virtual Couture: Improving Appearance of Photogrammertric VR Avatars through Interactive Clothing Assets
Description
The thesis explores the impact of interactive clothing on photorealistic avatars in virtual reality. Previous research has shown that personalized avatars with realistic clothing increase the Illusion of Virtual Body Ownership (IVBO), body ownership, and presence. On the contrary, the discrepancy between realistic appearances and the behavior of VR avatars might lead to the uncanny-valley effect. To increase the IVBO and related experiences, photorealistic avatars in VR should be as realistic as possible. The thesis therefore aims to investigate the impact of realistic clothing on photorealistic VR avatars and proposes the incorporation of personalized and interactive clothing options in the avatar generation pipeline. The planned methodology involves creating 3D clothing models, parametrizing them for flexibility, preparing the avatar and the 3D clothing models for cloth simulation in Unity and conducting a user study to compare avatars with and without interactive clothing and evaluate the effects on the IVBO and related experiences.
