Highly realistic virtual human models are rapidly becoming commonplace in computer graphics.These models, often represented by complex shape and requiring labor-intensive process, challenge the problem of automatic modeling. This paper studies the problem and solutions to automatic modeling of animatable virtual humans. Methods for capturing the shape of real people, parameterization techniques for modeling static shape (the variety of human body shapes) and dynamic shape (how the body shape changes as it moves) of virtual humans are classified, summarized and compared. Finally, methods for clothed virtual humans are reviewed.