ADVANCED TOOLS AND METHODS FOR VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

The plug-in works on a user-defined animated polygon surface of a face in a Maya scene. The Face Definition Points (FDPs), as defined in the MPEG-4 standard, are specified in an external file that simply marks a subset of model vertices as FDPs. The selection of FPDs has been done manually in this version. The plug-in follows the motion of the FDPs and, after having rotated the surface back to a standard position, calculates the FAPs (Facial Animation Points) corresponding to the displacements of the FDPs. The face-model is extracted to an .msh file, the FDPs positions are stored in an .fdp file, while the FAP-encoded animation is extracted to an .fap file. The animation is performed on the time interval between the frames defined by the user when the plug-in is invoked. The standard MOMUSYS player developed at the Instituto Superior Tecnico, in the context of the European project ACTS MOMUSYS has been used. An application has been developed, which renders and animates a face model. Its static parameters, the models mesh and the FDPs, are loaded from external files and the animation parameters are also loaded from .fap files. The FDPs of the loaded face model follow the animation, as defined from the FAP parameters, which are read in the .fap file. The files extracted by the plug-in, can be used to animate a face in any MPEG-4 player, which supports the standard face definition. The .fap file can animate a predefined face model as seen in Figure 1. Moreover, if .msh and .fdp files are loaded in the player, the player is able to work on the specified face model. The player can faithfully follow the movements of FDPs as they are prescribed by the FAP definitions. Another variant that can faithfully reproduce the movements of all model vertices has been developed. A second version of the Maya plug-in is under development, which allows to extract Facial Animation Tables in .fat files from the animated face in the scene. Such files contain the MPEG-4 defined Facial Animation Tables, which give the appropriate information to an MPEG-4 player to animate all vertices of a specific model in an exact manner. The modification requires a further development of the facial animation player so as to interpret correctly the deformation of each vertex, which is triggered by a corresponding FAP parameter. The string format of FacialAnimationTable follows strictly the bitstream syntax of FacialAnimationTable. The name extension of the file containing the FacialAnimationTable is .fat. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

Worlds Studio Client: The client, located on the users computers, is a IDE able to launch external tools to work on the data. It downloads from the repository, via the versioning system, the data needed by the users. These work on the local copy and then they upload the new version, once the improvement is done. Each user do not have all the data downloaded on his computer, he only has the data he works with. The gathering of all the data are only made by the integrator, he will use the client to collect all the data and put them on the integration server. The client software has an external tool manager, which provides ways for the user to associate the software he wants to manipulate the data. The tool is launched by the Worlds-studio client. The client has the versioning client module, the catalogue browser, a media viewer. Administration System: The administration component takes care of the users, roles and projects administration. A database stores the user profile (name, login, password, role). The user is associated with a role, the role is linked with the rights and the views over the project the user will have. It is compound of a small database and of a software controller, which creates the views and the links with the repository. In the databases, the projects are defined, and associated with a list of users and their role for this task. This component is on the repository server. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

The architecture of the WS platform, its procedures and functionalities along the production workflow reflect in its interface for the user. Therefore designing the GUI of the WS platform means bringing together the whole collection of user requirements in a well designed and manageable user interface. The different requirements have to be mapped out as tools whose shape and function must enable the full scope of features discussed in the URD. In the final version of URD the disposition of user requirements now refers to the different roles that were outlined in the Collaborative requirements. This layout of the WS GUI is designed for: Media content creators: Media Designers mainly use specific content creation tools (i.e. Photoshop or Studio3D Max). For them it is important to work seamless with their personal palette of production tools, which is offered by the WS platform that acts as a kind of mothership for all the applications that are needed by the Designer. With its toolbox for asset management the GUI of the WS platform supports easy access and storage during the production workflow offering two views on the WS data repository: one can work both project-orientated and focused on content ( i.e. global search of objects ). The drag&drop-metapher for the management of media data is consistently implemented in the asset management of the WS platform. The WS platform also offers a lot of tools, which are important for the collaborative communication between the different roles in a production. Media integrators and programmers: The same user interface can mainly be used by the media integrators who work with special hi-level authoring tools. For them seamless integration and management of the separate media files and types is the most important feature of the WS platform, since the creation of the actual interactive structures is done in specialized tools. Versioning systems like the CVS in WS platform ensure the use of final and approved versions of files. The standardized data format that will be use by the WS platform. Text is one of the easiest media types to handle. In the palette of data formats, the exchange of written code, its implementation, debugging and approval can be managed by the presented GUI and provides a consistent user interface even for programmers. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

The Worlds Studio Consortium organized the First International Workshop on Interactive Rich Media Content Production: Architectures, Technologies, Applications and Tools, which was held from 9th to 10th of October 2003 in Lausanne, Switzerland. This Workshop on Interactive Rich Media Content Production addresses the issues of productivity and interactivity in digital content. The workshop was organized by the Worlds Studio IST project and is sponsored by the 3eme cycle romand and EURASIP. It is the premier forum for the presentation of technological advances and research results in the fields of theoretical, experimental, and applied rich media processing. Therefore, The RICHMEDIA2003 workshop brought together leading engineers and scientists in rich media content production from around the world. After a six month lasting Call for Paper, 75 Papers have been reviewed by members of the Worlds Studio Consortium. As Result of the Reviewing Process, 17 Papers were accepted. These Papers were presented during the RichMedia2003 Workshop in Lausanne. At the End of the two Days lasting Workshop, a special Worlds Studio Panel was held by the Worlds Studio Consortium, presenting the state of development of the Worlds Studio platform to international specialists from Europe, Asia and North America, followed by a discussion panel to collect in the experts comments. Hereafter the Conference Programme giving the details about Panels, Papers and speakers: Heritage Explorer through Real and Virtual Museum by Yong-Moo Kwon, Tae-Sung Lee, Seun Ryu and Jae-Kyung Seol Korea Institute of Science & Technology, Seoul, Korea Predictive Interest Management: An Approach to Managing Message Dissemination for Distributed Virtual Environments By Graham Morgan & Fengyun Lu University of Newcastle, UK A Resource Description and Capability Exchange: Architecture for Universal Multimedia Access Enabled System By Andrew Perkis, Jijun Zhang, Tor Halvorsen The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway Functionally-based Augmented Sculpting By Valery Adzhiev, Peter Comninos, Maxim Kazakov, Alexander Pasko Bournemouth University, UK; Digital Media Professionals, Tokyo, Japan; Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan 2D Physics-Based Deformable Shape Models: Explicit Governing Equations by Stelios Krinidi and Ioannis Pitas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece MPEG-4 Extension for Complex Patterned Textures By Neeharika Adabala, Chris Joslin and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann MIRALab - University of Geneva, Switzerland JPEG 2000 vs. JPEG in MPEG Encoding By V.G. Ruiz, M.F. L/opez, I. Garc/ya and E.M.T. Hendrix Universidad de Almer/ya, Spain Signifiance Analysis of HVXC Speech Coding Parameters at High Frequency By R. Rodriques, F. Perdiagao and A. Navarro Aveiro University, Portugal Super High Definition Digital Cinema Delivery System with 8 million pixel resolution By Tetsuro Fujii, Daisuke Shirai, Takahiro Yamaguchi, Mitsuru Nomura and Tatsuya Fujii, NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, Kanagawa Japan Wavelet-based vs. DCT-based Progressive Compression of Biological Specimens Images By V.G. Ruiz, J.J. Fern/andez, M.F. L/opez, I. Garc/ya University of Almer/ya., Spain ShowFace: A Framework for Personalized Face Animation By Ali Arya, Babak Hamidzadeh University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Emotional Speech Databases: A Review By Dimitrios Ververidis and Constantine Kotropoulos Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. A MAYA Exporting Plug-in for MPEG-4 FBA Human Characters By Yacine Amara, Mario Gutierez, Frederic Vexo and Daniel Thalmann VRLab, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland MPEG 4 Compliant Information Extraction from an Animated Face in MAYA By Charalampos Laftsidis, Constantine Kotropoulos, Ioannis Pitas Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Motion Editing with prioritized constraints By Ronan Boulic, Benoit le Callennec, Martin Herren, Herbert Bay VRLab, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Design and Benchmarking of Human-Computer Interface for keyboard encoding of hand gestures. By Nicoletta Adamo-Villani, Gerardo Beni Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA; University of California at Riverside, USA Partly-Specified Priority Patterns in Natural Language Parsing within Dialogues Systems By Gergely Kovasnai, Constantine Kotoropoulos, and Ioannis Pitas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Worlds Studio Advanced Tools and Methods for Virtual Environment Design and Production By Laurent Denizot EADS, Paris, France More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at : http://www.worlds-studio.info

The Maya-MPEG4 Exporter (Exporter) is a command plug-in. Maya has a special class to handle plugins. The following functions were used to develop it: - InitialisePlugin: The initializePlugin() function can be defined as either a C or C++ function. This function is the responsible to make the plugin loadable. Initialise Plugin contains the code to register any commands, tools, devices, and so on, defined by the plug-in with Maya. It is called only once-immediately after the plug-in is loaded. Once constructed, the MFnPlugin function set is used to register the contents of the plug-in file. Once done, the function returns a status code indicating whether or not it succeeded. After an unsuccessful initialisation, the plug-in is unloaded automatically. - UninitializePlugin: The uninitialize Plugin function also can be a C or C++ function. If you neglect to declare this function, your plug-in will not be loaded. The unitializePlugin function contains the code necessary to de-register from Maya whatever was registered through initializePlugin(). It is called once only-when the plug-in is unloaded. This function should be used for a few quick clean-up operations, such as closing files. It is not necessary for you to delete those commands, or nodes created by your plug-in when it exits since Maya takes care of them. You should therefore not be keeping a list of the Maya objects allocated by your plug-in nor freeing them when uninitializePlugin is called. Using the Maya API MPxTranslator Class: The Maya API has implemented a base class that can be used to implement the Maya File Translator Plug-Ins. A file translator plug-in allows Maya to read or write 3rd party file formats. The Exporter uses the following routines and methods: Reader: This routine is called when you need to load a file of a type supported by this translator. Writer: This routine is called when it is necessary to save a file of a type supported by this translator. DefaultExtension: This routine is called by Maya whenever it needs to know the default extension of a translator. Identify File: This routine is called by Maya when a file selection dialog accesses a new directory. Maya-MPEG4 Exporter Operation: The operation of the exporter can be divided in three main modules: - BDP File Generation: In this module, the exporter gathers all the necessary information to write the BDP File. The virtual human designed in Maya should be formed by one mesh and one skeleton, also it could have one or more materials and textures. The BDP file will be the VRML description of this virtual human. The virtual human has to be described as a hierarchy of joints that can either have or no an associated segment; moreover, this segments are described as a polygonal set with information about textures and materials. So, to form the file is necessary to gain access to the DAG to know details about the joints, mesh polygons, materials and textures. Moreover, this module is responsible to divide the virtual human in appropriate segments. It uses the clusters information to create the segments. The main methods of this module are: JointInfo: This method is used to iterate over the DAG to find the joints. PolygonsInfo: This method gathers information about the polygons that are part of the mesh. JointClusters: This method finds the vertex sets that are related with each joint. Segmentation: This method uses and links the information gathered for all the previous methods to form the segments that will be written in the BDP file. WriteInfoSegment: This method will look for the segment related with the present joint. It will obtain the vertices list, UV list, material list, polygon List and then write the segment information. - BAP File Generation In this module, the exporter gathers all the necessary information to write the BAP File. The animation created in Maya is possible upon changing the rotation values of the selected joints. So, in this module each frame will be examinated in order to look for the changes in the joints rotation. With this information, it is possible to calculate the BAPs and then write them in the BAP File. The main procedures of this module are: SearchJointChanged: This method will review the joints in the present frame in order to locate and store the angles of the joints rotated. StoreBapInfo: This method is used to write the animation information of every frame in the BAP file. WriteBapFrame: This procedure is used to write the animation information of every frame in the BAP file. - BDT File Generation In this method, the exporter will use the stored information about the segments to get the vertex list of the border of two adjacent segments. This information is organized and written in a file that could be processed to form the Body Deformation Tables. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

This component is the internally used media viewer, which handle large types of multimedia data: images, sound, 3D objects etc. It is used to browse the catalogues content. The MPEG-4 standard under development will provide a set of technologies to satisfy the needs of authors, service providers and end users alike. For authors, MPEG-4 will enable the production of content that has far greater reusability, has greater flexibility than is possible today with individual technologies such as digital television, animated graphics, World Wide Web (WWW) pages and their extensions. Also, it will be possible to better manage and protect content owner rights. MPEG-4 will offer for network service providers transparent information which will be interpreted and translated into the appropriate native signalling messages of each network with the help of relevant standards bodies having the appropriate jurisdiction. However the foregoing excludes Quality of Service considerations, for which MPEG-4 will provide a generic QoS parameter set for different MPEG-4 media. The exact mapping for these translations are beyond the scope of MPEG-4 and are left to be defined by network providers. Signalling of the QoS information end-to-end, will enable transport optimisation in heterogeneous networks. For end users, MPEG-4 will enable many functionalities which could potentially be accessed on a single compact terminal and higher levels of interaction with content, within the limits set by the author. An MPEG-4 applications document exists which describes many end user applications including, among others, real time communications, surveillance and mobile multimedia. For all parties involved, MPEG wants to avoid the emergence of a multitude of proprietary, non-interworking formats and players. MPEG-4 achieves these goals by providing standardised ways to: - Represent units of aural, visual or audiovisual content, called "audio/visual objects" or AVOs. (The very basic unit is more precisely called a "primitive AVO"). These AVOs can be of natural or synthetic origin; this means they could be recorded with a camera or microphone, or generated with a computer; - Compose these objects together to create compound audiovisual objects that form audiovisual scenes; - Multiplex and synchronise the data associated with AVOs, so that they can be transported over network channels providing a QoS appropriate for the nature of the specific AVOs; and - Interact with the audiovisual scene generated at the receivers end. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at http://www.worlds-studio.info

Object Catalogue System: The object Catalogue is the link between the data repository component and the versioning system. We will use a database to implement the catalogue. The tables linking the hardware location of a file with its metadata (description, author) and its versioning history. This database is located on the repository server. Versioning System: The versioning system manages the objects revisions. It deals with an arborescence similar to the data repository, but with empty files corresponding with the real objects in the repository. The versioning system deals with the object catalogue to insure the coherence of the versions of the data repositorys files and the versioning systems one. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

The Data repository is the storage area for all the files (3D object, images, video, sound, documentation, source code). It is organized within a files arborescence. Each file in his native format will be stored inside it. The data repository is located on the repository server. There will be a lot of read and write access, so it has to be on a SCSI hard disk to provide high performances. The repository has to be connected to a fast network, at least 100Mb/sec. For each version of an object, we have a new file. For this reason, a large disk area is needed. We use such a system due to the high proportion of binary files used for the multimedia production. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

Client Project Management Component: This component is used to collect and manage data needed for the project manager. It retrieves the time spent on the different tools, links this automatically in a log file, which can be used for a Gant diagram or equivalent. It helps the project manager for knowing the advance of the project, and the difference between the forecasted and the real tasks. Ultimately, a tool being used in wide media productions has to ensure far-reaching control for the management in charge. Important values such as time, costs, productivity and alike must be measurable and therefore transparent. Client Versioning System: It is the component, which manages the connexion, and the data transfer with the versioning system located on the server. It is embedded in the client in a such way that every manipulated data will be handled within the versioning system. The Worlds Studio Client Versioning System ensures that no media breaks are generated by the data transfer between Server and clients. This is one of the important objectives for an environment to be used by teams. Tools manager for virtual environment design and production: The tools manager component enables the WS client to register the tools he can launch. It makes a link between the tools and the objects the user wants to use them for. It adds the tools in the project management recording process, which records the activation of the different processes, and counts the time spend on a tool, writing log these information in a database on the repository. More information on the WORLDS STUDIO project can be found at: http://www.worlds-studio.info

Worlds Studio external web site: Worlds Studio external web site at http://www.worlds-studio info presents the Worlds Studio Consortium, each Partner of this Consortium, the Projects state of development and the projects results. The main navigation consists of the Project description itself, Partners, Events and News. The site enables contacting the consortium as well as the partners involved. All meetings and reviews are published on the site. Worlds Studio Project Brochure: The Worlds Studio brochure presents the project and its objectives on the one hand, and the websites basic information on the other. Above all, it will accompany the project on exhibitions in order to reach potential users and customers with all basic information for contacting the consortium. Furthermore, all partners participating partners in this project use this instrument for sending to their partners of potential interest (such as potential users and customers, multipliers and media). Therefore the brochure is held in high gloss in order to catch attention and to attract.

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