• 한국정보시스템학회지:정보시스템연구
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.163-188
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• 2023

Purpose The study examines the impact of the level of anthropomorphism (both in appearance and behavior) of virtual humans on user liking. It investigates whether this relationship is mediated by social comparison experiences, with the moderated mediation effect of users' desire for self-improvement. Design/methodology/approach A between-groups experimental design was employed to examine the impact of different levels of appearance(low/mid/high) and behavior(low/high) anthropomorphism on user liking of virtual humans. The experiment was conducted in an online environment, and participants were randomly exposed to one of six stimuli, which were Instagram-like posts. Findings The results indicate that as virtual humans become more anthropomorphic, they have a positive impact on user liking. However, once the level of anthropomorphism in appearance reaches a certain point (mid vs high), there is no significant difference in user liking. Users who perceive virtual humans as highly anthropomorphic tend to engage in more social comparison experiences, which positively affects their liking for these virtual humans. Conversely, individuals with a high desire for self-improvement found that the positive effect of appearance anthropomorphism on liking through social comparison experiences was reduced. The study extends the application of social comparison theory by examining its impact on influencer marketing with virtual beings. It provides valuable insights for the formulation of influencer marketing strategies using virtual humans.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.23-36
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• 2024

Interest in virtual humans continues to increase due to the development of generative AI, extended reality, computer graphics technology, and the spread of a converged metaverse that goes beyond the boundaries between reality and virtuality. Despite the negative public opinion that virtual humans were just temporary form of entertainment event in the early days of their emergence, the reason they are showing continuous growth is due to the unique characteristics of virtual humans and the expansion of diverse usage from technological advancements. The production of video content using virtual humans is becoming vigorously active, but currently there is limitation and no exact process for the technology to apply virtual humans to video content for it to be produced accordingly to the characteristics or situations of virtual humans. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of virtual human production technology methods & processes, and identifying the impact of each production technology on the production environment through examples of virtual human content applied to domestic and international video contents. In conclusion, by proposing an appropriate production method for each content, we hope to develop and assist production practitioners so they can effectively use virtual humans in video content production.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제20권12호
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• pp.230-240
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• 2020

가상세계 기반 몰입형 가정교사 시스템을 개발하기 위해 상황의 다양성과 사실성을 최대화하기 위한 공간적 측면에서의 시뮬레이션을 개발하고자 한다. 이를 위해서는 가상공간의 모델링과 함께 가상인간들의 지식 및 지능적 사유기능이 필요하다. 먼저 공간의 계층적이고 다면적인 구성과 그에 상응하는 가상인간들의 지식을 모사하기 위한 정보구조가 필요하다. 구체적으로 2.5차원 공간분포표현, 복잡한 공간관계표현, 객체표현, 사건들의 시공간적 표현을 위한 네 개의 구조를 각각 개발한다. 그리고 이와 같이 표현된 지식을 사용하여 공간적인 이동을 하는데 필요한 가상인간의 공간적 사유 기능을 개발한다. 일반적으로 사건은 힘을 매개로 인접하거나 연결된 다른 객체들에게도 연쇄적으로 영향을 미쳐서 다양한 상황들이 펼쳐지며 관련된 가상인간들이 다음 행동을 계획하는 데에 반영된다. 이를 위해 시공간 표현구조 상에 역사적 흐름에 따라 사건들의 전개를 기록한다. 전형적 사건을 구현하여 가상인간의 복잡한 공간속에서의 자주적 행동의 실현가능성을 보여준다.

• 한국컴퓨터정보학회논문지
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• 제24권1호
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• pp.67-71
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• 2019

With continued technology innovation in the fields of computer graphics (CG) and virtual reality (VR), digital animated avatars (or virtual humans) are evolving into ones that are more interactive at a suitable location such as museum, airport, and shopping mall. Specially, the form of the avatar (or the virtual human) realistically need to be expressed in a way that matches the users' physical space. In recent many researches, the form of virtual human has been expressed as mixed-reality human (MRH)-the virtual human combines with the physicality as the real part. In this paper, we propose to carry out a study comparing various MRH on co-presence and emotional response in two-typed virtual humans depending on how many actual parts are included: (1) (Level 1) small parts in the virtual human combined virtual components (e.g., the head only) and (2) (Level 2) large parts in the virtual human with the physicality as the real part such as head, arms, and upper body). We report on the implemented results of our virtual humans and experimental results on co-presence and emotional response.

• 한국정보통신학회논문지
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• 제24권9호
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• pp.1245-1248
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• 2020

Elderly people living alone need smart care for independent living. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have allowed for easier interaction by a computer-controlled virtual human. This technology can realize services such as medicine intake guide for the elderly living alone. In this paper, we suggest an intelligent virtual human and present our virtual human toolkit for controlling virtual humans for a senior citizen living alone. To make the virtual human motion, we suggest our authoring toolkit to map gestures, emotions, voices of virtual humans. The toolkit configured to create virtual human interactions allows the response of a suitable virtual human with facial expressions, gestures, and voice.

• 한국시뮬레이션학회논문지
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.93-103
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• 2005

This paper presents characteristics of a virtual human's navigation using a limited perception-based mapping. Previous approaches to virtual human navigation have used an omniscient perception requiring full layout of a virtual environment in advance. However, these approaches have a limitation on being a fundamental solution for a human-likeness of a virtual human, because behaviors of humans are basically based on their limited perception instead of omniscient perception. In this paper, we integrated Hill's mapping algorithm with a virtual human to experiment virtual human's navigation with the limited perception. This approach does not require full layout of the virtual environment, 360-degree's field of view, and vision through walls. In addition to static objects such as buildings, we consider enemy emergence that can affect an virtual human's navigation. The enemy emergence is used as the variable on the experiment of this present research. As the number of enemies varies, the changes in arrival rate and time taken to reach the goal position were observed. The virtual human navigates by two conditions. One is to take the shortest path to the goal position, and the other is to avoid enemies when the virtual human encounters them. The acquired result indicates that the virtual human's navigation corresponds to a human cognitive process, and thus this research can be a framework for human-likeness of virtual humans.

• International Journal of Contents
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• 제11권1호
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• pp.21-30
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• 2015

A simulated realistic virtual environment is inhabited by autonomous cyber-humans who play the roles of agents in events. A key element, which enables this realism, is the historical context formed by time and space. A knowledge-representation scheme, composed of both spatial and temporal aspects needed by the agent to respond to dynamically changing situations, is essential for the design of a realistic virtual agent. In this work, spatial and temporal aspects of dynamic situations in the virtual environment have been formalized as a key component of our knowledge-representation scheme. This scheme provides a mathematical framework to construct realistic virtual situations that change with time, and background knowledge for agents in the simulated environment to deduce new pieces of information and plan against changing situations.

• 한국컴퓨터그래픽스학회논문지
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.23-29
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• 2022

가상인간은 가상공간(가상 현실, 혼합 현실, 메타버스 등)에서 Unity와 같은 3D Engine 전용 모델링 도구로 구현된다. 실제 사람과 유사한 외모, 목소리, 표정이나 행동 등을 구현하기 위해 다양한 가상인간 모델링 도구가 도입되었고, 어느 정도 수준까지 인간과 의사소통이 가능한 가상인간을 구현할 수 있게 되었다. 하지만, 지금까지의 가상인간 의사소통 방식은 대부분 텍스트 혹은 스피치만을 사용하는 단일모달에 머물러 있다. 최근 AI 기술이 발전함에 따라 가상인간의 의사소통 방식은 과거 기계 중심의 텍스트 기반 시스템에서 인간 중심의 자연스러운 멀티모달 의사소통 방식으로 변화할 수 있게 되었다. 본 논문에서는 다양한 대화 데이터셋으로 미세조정한 인공신경망을 사용해 사용자와 자연스럽게 대화 할 수 있는 가상인간을 구현하고, 해당 가상인간이 생성하는 문장의 감정값을 분석하여 이에 맞는 표정을 발화 중에 나타내는 시스템을 구현하여 사용자와 가상인간 간의 실시간 멀티모달 대화가 가능하게 하였다.

• 융합신호처리학회논문지
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.113-118
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• 2024

최근 들어 인공지능, 컴퓨터 그래픽기술이 진화하면서 영화,광고, 방송, 게임, SNS 등 여러매체를 통해 다양한 가상휴먼이 등장하고 있다. 특히, 가상인플루언서를 중심으로 한 광고 마케팅 시장에서 가상휴먼은 시간과 비용 측면에서 기업의 중요한 홍보수단으로 이미 중요성이 입증된 상태이다. 국내는 가상 인플루언서 시장의 태동기 단계로 대기업 및 스타트업 경계없이 가상인플루언서 관련 신규 서비스를 출시 준비를 하고자 하나, 그 개발 프로세스가 공개되어 있지 않아 많은 비용을 지불해야 하는 상황이다. 이런 기업의 요구사항과 애로사항을 해결하기 위해 본 논문에서는 실사기반의 가상휴먼을 제작하기 위한 포토그래메트리기반 페이셜 캡춰 시스템을 구현하고, 이를 활용한 가상휴먼 모델링 및 활용사례에 대하여 고찰한다. 페이셜 캡처 후 실제 애니메이션이 가능한 과정까지의 복잡한 CG 작업 단계를 간소화할 수 있는 언리얼엔진기반의 메타휴먼 모델링을 통해 비용과 품질면에서 최적의 워크플로우에 대해서도 고찰하고, 또한 인스타그램 등 SNS마케팅에 활용한 사례에 대해서도 소개한다. 언리얼엔진기반의 워크플로우를 통해 기존의 CG작업과의 비교를 통해 제안한 워크플로우의 성능을 입증한다.

• 건축사
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• 통권585호
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• pp.154-163
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• 2018