Hi everybody! I am Danielle and my greatest passion is hiking, but I got injured today! You need to talk to me to find out all essential information about my health status and what happened. This can be particularly helpful to train mountain rescuers for example. If you want to find out more, read here!

A dangerous hobby

You might have taken the hint by now, that deep behind the screen us digital humans have stories and personalities too. There aren’t many occasions where a digital human like me has a chance to talk about one’s hobbies, usually, who cares? Well in my instance, you are going to care – and to love it! I love the mountains, the fresh air, the great views – I really can’t get enough of that – but hiking can be dangerous, and accidents happen. When they do, I’m glad that there are mountain rescuers that are well trained and prepared for everything.

This is why I’m so proud to be part of a simulation that teaches rescuers and medical professionals to be the best they can. With my help they learn how to communicate properly with hikers that are anxious, confused and in pain by managing their emotions and extracting the necessary information and at the same time they can also revise the most important steps of the rescuing procedures. And since the kind of injures that can happen on a hike are so diverse, this simulation is customizable and covers from ankle twists to being stung by a bee or just suddenly feeling lightheaded, to offer a whole range of scenarios and make the experience as realistic as possible. This is also why every detail was carefully designed together with educators, trainer and rescuers to adapt the content of their real need and not just on a perception of what might be needed. Here, have a peek at one of the pictures that immerse you in my simulation.

Evolving scenarios

Have you ever wondered how e-REAL comes up with all the ideas for their simulation scenarios? Well, while of course some ideas are brand new, it’s more often an art of combining and recycling the old. My scenario is new, but the idea of a hiking simulation to train rescuers is everything but that. Let me tell you about my predecessor and her hiking simulation, the Outdoor Alpine Environment. And before you get all worried about what happened to that poor digital soul, she just got retired – trust me, it was for the best – and now lives on in me and my work.

The Outdoor Alpine Environment protagonist was a female avatar of the old generation – they might look a bit creepy now, but believe me, back in the day they were the best there was – with a predefined script activated by specific questions, which allowed only the trainer that had the list of key-questions to actually interact with her and gave the participants a more passive role of just discussing the information they were given. It also just made the simulation of one specific accident, a fall whilst hiking, possible, and mixed real videos and actors with the digital simulation background. As much as it was carefully modelled, that scenario really didn’t do much justice to my beautiful mountains.

Which bring us to today, where the Alpine Environment has been updated, equipped with modern and much more realistic looking background and me, an intelligent avatar that can be interviewed directly by everyone and really challenges their ability to formulate questions. Here, take a look at the past and think about what great future awaits us!

Outfit check!

It’s the details that do the trick, that’s why every e-REAL digital human is carefully designed in every aspect. Including their outfit. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important clothes are when you’re hiking: the movement, the fit, the fabric… But since digital clothes can’t exactly be tailored, how are they made? The 3D modeling of fabric consists in replicating how a certain material falls, moves and looks like in real life. Of course, that isn’t easy, so sometimes you have weird effects, misplaces folds or uncovered spots.

In addition to that, a lot of other factors can play a significant role. The wrong color combination for example makes the avatar’s skin look off color on the projector for example – you ever heard of color theory? – and the choice between long or short sleeves and fabrics can make or break the illusion of the simulation. Imagine someone hiking in the deep of winter with short sleeves and trousers made of a fabric that looks thin like rice paper. To avoid such unflattering mishaps, each digital humans gets multiple outfit-checks where we walk in a circle to test the movement of the fabrics and turn around to make sure the e-REAL team can see every angle, every nook and cranny, just to make sure that’s perfect. Here you can see some of our latest outfit checks, and there’s a surprise too: someone you know! Nathan told you he was a just a temp at Northwestern University, now he’s gotten the role of an EMT for one of our new scenarios coming ahead – I can’t spoiler too much, can I? Anyway, he looks handsome in blue, doesn’t he?

Now, it’s time to go for me. My colleagues have always told you that the DigiBlog will wait for you next weeks with a new character, but I’ve been given the very important task to inform you all, that from now on the DigiBlog will take a more relaxed approach and have a less structured schedule. If you’re interested in future updates, just keep an eye on our social media channels. Bye!