On Raising a Virtual Human

I have been fortunate to have experienced and contributed to the software development of virtual humans. Whether they are Avatars, Conversational Agents, game NPCs, or Virtual Influencers, they all have origins in computer graphics (CG). Indeed, the “DNA” of these human models encompasses a large set of CG component technologies including 3-D modeling, animation techniques, and interactive systems. Finding (or purporting to know) “the” path from the origins to the present would require writing a CG and art history book about representing the human form. Here I will try to document portions of an evolutionary path—and my personal journey—to elucidate the context and processes that led up to the explosion of virtual human software “DNA” by the turn of the millennium.