COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS

With the advent of very powerful PCs and high-end graphics cards, there has been an incredible development in Virtual Worlds, real-time computer animation and simulation, games. But at the same time, new and cheaper Virtual Reality devices have appeared allowing an interaction with these real-time Virtual Worlds and even with real worlds through Augmented Reality. Three-dimensional characters, especially Virtual Humans are now of an exceptional quality, which allows to use them in the movie industry. But this is only a beginning, as with the development of Artificial Intelligence and Agent technology, these characters will become more and more autonomous and even intelligent. They will inhabit the Virtual Worlds in a Virtual Life together with animals and plants. Computer Animation & Virtual Worlds is the first journal to address this global thematic of the Virtual Worlds. This thematic has been subdivided into 6 areas: Computer animation Embodied agents Virtual Environments Augmented Reality Virtual Life Visualization Computer Animation & Virtual Worlds seeks papers in all fields of Virtual Worlds. Contributions are solicited describing original research results, applications, and experience in the following topics: Computer Animation 2D animation Keyframe animation Inverse kinematics Biomechanics models Motion capture and motion retargeting Physical-based animation Facial and body animation Path planning Cloth and hair animation LOD and impostors Real-time rendering Augmented Reality Tracking Mobile AR systems Virtual Heritage Embodied Agents Perceptual models Virtual Sensors Interagent communication Modelling of groups and crowds Conversational agents Goal driven behavior Interaction with Virtual Humans Intelligent virtual actors Social behavior Emotions and personality Autonomous Virtual Human architectures Simulation involving Virtual Humans Autonomous Virtual Humans in games Virtual Environments Gesture and action recognition Haptic interfaces Audiospace Simulators (flight, car drive etc…) VR for emergency VR for psychiatry VR for rehabilitation Virtual surgery Virtual Life Plant development and growing L-systems Artificial animals and animats Population generation Virtual cities Persistent worlds Visualization Medical imaging and reconstruction Molecular graphics Fluid visualization Visualization of physical phenomena Volume rendering