In this signature work, I studied the upper facial expression of an avatar in a social VR scenario. I did two pilot studies on how an avatar’s upper facial expression affects emotion recognition and naturalness. Then I implemented a unique technique of synthesizing an avatar’s upper facial expression based on a user’s lower face movements. In addition, I also conducted a usability test to evaluate its performance. Results revealed that it has enormous potential to be popularized and suit different scenarios and be used for different needs in social VR communication. |