Virtual Humans Within Entertainment Content

谢里登学院建议与三家公司（Secret Location， AMD和SEED Interactive）合作，帮助他们实现媒体和娱乐领域解决方案的突破性交付，将多平台用户体验中的人-虚拟人社交互动整合在一起。虚拟人是计算机生成的角色，它们表现出与人类相似的品质，并使用自然的人类模式（包括面部表情、语言和手势）与人类和彼此交流。拟议的项目将侧重于评估端到端虚拟人架构所需的模块和技术，并关注与多媒体和娱乐部门生产工作流程的潜在集成。未来五年国际市场增长预测的两个重要领域的发展使虚拟人类商业应用的巨大增长潜力成为可能：虚拟和增强现实；还有人工智能。商业化机会最终存在于媒体和娱乐领域；所有部门的培训和模拟；以及在医疗、养老和教育等领域为人与人之间的服务提供补充支持。然而，目前商业化受到各种因素的阻碍，包括端到端解决方案中所需技术的复杂性。该项目将使来自数字艺术、计算机科学和社会科学的谢里登研究人员团队与行业合作伙伴共同努力，确定有利于媒体和娱乐部门个别公司的解决方案，同时在多个加拿大经济和社会福利部门中产生二次效益。

Sheridan College proposes to partner with three companies (Secret Location, AMD, and SEED Interactive) to help them achieve breakthrough delivery of media and entertainment sector solutions integrating human-virtual human social interaction within multiplatform user experiences. Virtual humans are computer-generated characters that exhibit human-like qualities and communicate with humans and each other using natural human modalities including facial expressions, speech and gesture. The proposed project will focus on evaluation of modules and technologies required for an end-to-end virtual human architecture with attention to the potential integration with multiple media and entertainment sector production workflows. The potential for dramatic growth in commercial application of virtual humans is being enabled by developments in two significant areas of predicted international market growth over the next five years: virtual and augmented reality; and artificial intelligence. Commercialization opportunities ultimately exist within media and entertainment; training and simulation across all sectors; and supplementary support for human- to-human provision of services in areas such as healthcare, aging in place, and education. At the present time, however, commercialization is hampered by a variety of factors including the complexity of the technologies required within an end-to-end solution. The proposed project will enable a team of Sheridan researchers from the digital arts, computer sciences, and social sciences to work together with industry partners to identify solutions that benefit individual companies within the media and entertainment sector while having secondary benefit throughout multiple Canadian economic and social welfare sectors.