Character Motions (character + motion)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Interactive animation of virtual humans based on motion capture data

COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 5-6 2009
Franck Multon
Abstract This paper presents a novel, parameteric framework for synthesizing new character motions from existing motion capture data. Our framework can conduct morphological adaptation as well as kinematic and physically-based corrections. All these solvers are organized in layers in order to be easily combined together. Given locomotion as an example, the system automatically adapts the motion data to the size of the synthetic figure and to its environment; the character will correctly step over complex ground shapes and counteract with external forces applied to the body. Our framework is based on a frame-based solver. This ensures animating hundreds of humanoids with different morphologies in real-time. It is particularly suitable for interactive applications such as video games and virtual reality where a user interacts in an unpredictable way. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Approximating character biomechanics with real-time weighted inverse kinematics

COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 4-5 2007
Michael Meredith
Abstract In this paper we show how the expensive, offline dynamic simulations of character motions can be approximated using the cheaper weighted inverse kinematics (WIK)-based approach. We first show how a dynamics-based approach can be used to produce a motion that is representative of a real target actor using the motion of a different source actor and the biomechanics of the target actor. This is compared against a process that uses WIK to achieve the same motion mapping goal without direct biomechanical input. The parallels between the results of the two approaches are described and further reasoned from a mathematical perspective. Thus we demonstrate how character biomechanics can be approximated with real-time WIK. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Kinematics, Dynamics, Biomechanics: Evolution of Autonomy in Game Animation

COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2005
Steve Collins
The believeable portrayal of character performances is critical in engaging the immersed player in interactive entertainment. The story, the emotion and the relationship between the player and the world they are interacting within are hugely dependent on how appropriately the world's characters look, move and behave. We're concerned here with the character's motion; with next generation game consoles like Xbox360TM and Playstation®3 the graphical representation of characters will take a major step forward which places even more emphasis on the motion of the character. The behavior of the character is driven by story and design which are adapted to game context by the game's AI system. The motion of the characters populating the game's world, however, is evolving to an interesting blend of kinematics, dynamics, biomechanics and AI drivenmotion planning. Our goal here is to present the technologies involved in creating what are essentially character automata, emotionless and largely brainless character shells that nevertheless exhibit enough "behavior" to move as directed while adapting to the environment through sensing and actuating responses. This abstracts the complexities of low level motion control, dynamics, collision detection etc. and allows the game's artificial intelligence system to direct these characters at a higher level. While much research has already been conducted in this area and some great results have been published, we will present the particular issues that face game developers working on current and next generation consoles, and how these technologies may be integrated into game production pipelines so to facilitate the creation of character performances in games. The challenges posed by the limited memory and CPU bandwidth (though this is changing somewhat with next generation) and the challenges of integrating these solutions with current game design approaches leads to some interesting problems, some of which the industry has solutions for and some others which still remain largely unsolved. [source]


Local Physical Models for Interactive Character Animation

COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2002
Sageev Oore
Our goal is to design and build a tool for the creation of expressive character animation. Virtual puppetry, also known as performance animation, is a technique in which the user interactively controls a character's motion. In this paper we introduce local physical models for performance animation and describe how they can augment an existing kinematic method to achieve very effective animation control. These models approximate specific physically-generated aspects of a character's motion. They automate certain behaviours, while still letting the user override such motion via a PD-controller if he so desires. Furthermore, they can be tuned to ignore certain undesirable effects, such as the risk of having a character fall over, by ignoring corresponding components of the force. Although local physical models are a quite simple approximation to real physical behaviour, we show that they are extremely useful for interactive character control, and contribute positively to the expressiveness of the character's motion. In this paper, we develop such models at the knees and ankles of an interactively-animated 3D anthropomorphic character, and demonstrate a resulting animation. This approach can be applied in a straight-forward way to other joints. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism, Interaction Techniques [source]