关键词: 虚拟环境, 化身, 人体建模, 角色动画, 情感计算

Abstract: Avatar technique is important to applications such as virtual environments，simulation and digital entertainment.This paper first reviews the history and definition of avatar.Then it surveys relevant techniques such as human body modeling，real-time rendering，character animation and affection computation by introducing，comparing and summarizing representative algorithms.After the introduction of several typical applications，it is concluded with the direction of future research.

Key words: virtual environments, avatar, human body modeling, character animation, affection computation