3-point Tracking with Procedural and Baked Animation and Inverse Kinematic to Create a Closer Realistic Full-body Movement in Virtual Reality

Abstract

This paper presents a full-body avatar animation that combines 3-point tracking, inverse kinematics, and procedural and baked animation to improve avatar realism in virtual reality (VR). The technique allows users to control a full-body avatar using only a VR headset and controllers without the need for further sensors. The scalability of the proposed system in terms of multiple animated avatars being in one scene has been evaluated. A study with 22 participants was conducted in Aachen, Germany to evaluate the level of immersion provided by the combined animation avatar. Voluntary sampling method was used to recruit the participants and the quantitative experiment method was used as methodology approach. All four hypotheses tested were supported. The first hypothesis was evaluated using the Chi-Squared test, while the remaining hypotheses were assessed through descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test. The results showed that the combined animation technique improved immersion and increased users’ sense of presence and engagement in the VR environment. This study also found that the combined animation technique adequately reproduced the user’s movements. Thus, the full-body avatar system presented in this work has the potential to enhance the immersive experience of VR applications.