PhD Position F/M When Our Avatars Transform Us: Enhancing the VR User Experience by Modifying Avatar Movement

The Inria Centre at Rennes University is one of Inria's eight centres and has more than thirty research teams. The Inria Centre is a major and recognized player in the field of digital sciences. It is at the heart of a rich R&D and innovation ecosystem: highly innovative PMEs, large industrial groups, competitiveness clusters, research and higher education players, laboratories of excellence, technological research institute, etc.

The funding for the PhD thesis candidature will be subject to a recruitment campaign of the University Rennes 1. This will also require the participant to pass tha "ISA competition". More information: https://intranet.irisa.fr/campagnes-these -> doctoral contracts (ODC) University Rennes 1.

For this reason, it is important to submit your application before 15th May 2026 to be in accordance with the campaing deadlines. 

No international exchanges (secondments) are envisioned in this post but the PhD candidate will attend international conferences, workshops and/or seminars and have international research collaborations.  

The candidate will be part of the VirtUs grup, a internationally recognised research team working in immersive populated virtual spaces. https://team.inria.fr/virtus The team also provides a friendly and supportive environment for students were collaboration and mutual support is highly encouraged. 

The main aim of this project is to explore the perception of people's body movements (of self and others) when they are applied to a virtual character in virtual reality (VR) and to develop motion modifiers which will change the content of the motion without diminishing its naturalness. The first step will be to develop a motion filter in VR (using animation blueprints in Unreal Engine 5) which will be applied to a virtual character, designed for a user to embody and control it with their own body movements (Xsens motion capture). Through a series of experiments with participants, embodied in VR, we will investigate the perceptual effects of the created motion filter. We expect that understanding the perception of motion modification of such avatars could help us create enriched experiences for users of VR applications in health and education, to enhance the outcomes of therapy/training [1], as well as to imagine new forms of interaction and communication (e.g., VRChat).

Context: Individuals can be represented in VR as digital humans, also known as avatars. It is now possible to create visually highly realistic avatars; however, to be truly accepted by users, these avatars must also faithfully reproduce their physical movements. Generating believable movements for avatars remains a complex challenge. The most accurate methods for capturing human motion become less reliable when the user is immersed in VR, as it is technically difficult to track movement in real time while simultaneously using it to animate the avatar. As a result, computational motion editing techniques are generally used to correct or adapt recorded motion data, as well as to modify the expressiveness of the virtual human (emotions, personality) [2].

The primary objective of this project is to explore and adapt motion modifiers, or existing filters [3], capable of transforming human movement in a realistic and plausible way. A second key objective is to understand how humans perceive body movements, and whether they are able to detect modifications to their own movements as well as those of others when represented by an avatar in VR.

To achieve this, we will conduct several virtual reality experiments involving human participants. These experiments will require the design of a virtual environment, including: spatial setup (HTC Vive, Unreal Engine), creation of a realistic virtual character (Metahumans), and implementation of the animation pipeline (Xsens, motion filters). We will evaluate motion perception in VR using volunteer participants. The experiments will involve recording users’ movements and modifying them either in real time (while the user is moving) or offline (playback after recording). The study will focus on how individuals perceive their own movement when it is altered, compared to unaltered movement. We expect that participants will be able to recognize the movement as their own, even when it has been modified, and we hope that this will alter their self-perception, which could have significant benefits for psychotherapy.

Supervision and responsibilities: The successful candidate will work closely with the supervisors Katja Zibrek (ISFP) and Ludovic Hoyet (CRCN) to meet the proposed objectives. 

References

[1] Slater, M., Neyret, S., Johnston, T., Iruretagoyena, G., Crespo, M. Á. D. L. C., Alabèrnia-Segura, M., & Feixas, G. (2019). An experimental study of a virtual reality counselling paradigm using embodied self-dialogue. Scientific reports, 9(1), 10903.

[2] Aberman, K., Weng, Y., Lischinski, D., Cohen-Or, D., & Chen, B. (2020). Unpaired motion style transfer from video to animation. ACM Transactions on Graphics , 39(4), 64-1.

[3] Durupinar, F., Kapadia, M., Deutsch, S., Neff, M., & Badler, N. I. (2016). Perform: Perceptual approach for adding ocean personality to human motion using laban movement analysis. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 36(1), 1-16.

The PhD candidate will help with formulating the research hypotheses, designing and conduct experiments in VR/AR and analysing the results. The target is to publish the studies at the international conferences and journals and it is expected that the student will be able to take the lead in the paper production. The student will be given autonomy to explore the ideas in the context of the project and implement them through guided supervision. The student will also be involved in team activities and will be able to get support from the team members. 

The candidate must have a master degree (or equivalent), with a preference in virtual (or mixed) reality and human computer interaction. In addition, the candidate should be comfortable with as much following items as possible: 

• Experience in 3D/VR/AR applications (Unreal Engine, Unity, etc). 
• Experience in evaluation methods and controlled users studies. 
• Good knowledge in programming languages (e.g. C#, C++). 
• Good spoken and written English. 

• Subsidized meals
• Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
• Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
• Possibility of teleworking (after 6 months of employment) and flexible organization of working hours
• Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
• Social, cultural and sports events and activities
• Access to vocational training
• Social security coverage

monthly gross salary 2300 euros