Increasing the feeling of social presence by incorporating realistic interactions in multi-party VR

Abstract

Behavioral realism and realistic interactions are major criteria for improving social presence in virtual reality environments. We focus on multi-party VR applications where computer agents and avatars interact, share and collaborate with each other using objects. Our formulation employs realistic animations to simulate human-like behavioral motions of computer agents while they interact with avatars to enhance the sense of social presence in the VR environment. We exemplify our proposed model in a VR volleyball game setup. We model specific underlying interactions like gazing, collision detection and miscellaneous reactions (like how to pick a volleyball, how to transfer the ball to server) between computers players and avatars in the VR Volleyball game. We conduct a preliminary user survey to illustrate the significance of inclusion of realistic interactions for improving sense of social presence in a multi-party VR environment.