Modeling of bodies and clothes for virtual environments

Although graphical human modeling has been a long sought subject in computer graphics, when it comes to dealing with real-time applications, it raises a number of unique requirements for both CG artists and researchers. For example, for a real-time performance it is highly desirable to lighten the geometry and optimize the runtime animation of characters wherever possible. An important need in such systems is to assist the CG artists in seamlessly transforming their modeling work from CG packages to the real-time application, without limiting their expressivity. In this paper we describe techniques by which dressed human characters are modeled, loaded into VR scenes, and simulated in real-time. In doing so, we point out challenging issues and solutions that such tasks imply at each phase of modeling and simulation. In particular, we turn our attention to what we consider as key technical components: body and clothes. Case studies show that our modelers successfully meet the need of real-time requirements over a wide variety of scenarios.