Recently many tools, including algorithms and systems, have made it easier to populate immersive virtual environments (VEs) with autonomous characters. Today it is common to explore virtual environments that can reach the size of an entire city that can be populated by many thousands of virtual characters. The objective of this workshop on "Virtual Humans and Crowds for Immersive Environments" is threefold. Through both invited and contributed presentations, we will:

• provide an overview on the state of the art techniques to populate virtual environments. Especially, we will present state-of-the-art crowd simulation techniques that enable populating large VEs. Recent developments in crowd simulation has significantly improved the level of quality for character motions, as well as computational performances. One objective of the workshop is to discuss how VR and immersive environments can benefit from these recent developments. 

• present some examples of new research opportunities by the availability of populated virtual environment. Populating large VEs with many autonomous characters is a relatively recent advancement. What research can benefit from such capability? The call for contributions to the workshop will explore this question. Some possibilities include social psychology research on crowd behaviors or treatment of social phobia. We anticipate presentations related to how recent technological progresses enable or facilitated such research.

• discuss technological requirements for future applications. Recent technologies and software have clearly eased the creation of populated immersive VEs.  One final objective of the workshop is to gather the requirements of current users of these technologies for future applications. Can we expect better animation quality? Better rendering?  Or, higher level of autonomy? What kind interactivity is needed for autonomous characters? 

Finally, we hope that the workshop will provide an opportunity for researchers to develop new techniques for virtual humans and crowd, possibly leading to new collaboration. Please see the workshop website for details of the technical program.