Practical Character Physics for Animators

—We describe a graphics system that significantly improves the visual quality of certain types of 3D character motion animated through traditional means by inferring physical properties and correcting the results through the use of dynamics. These physical characteristics are visualized and provide information not normally available to traditional 3D animators, such as displaying the center of mass, angular momentum and zero moment point. By comparing the original path as generated by an animator, against a proper physically-based path generated by our tool, the animator is able to interactively modify the original motion path to more closely match the generated physicsbased path. This often results in better quality character motion. Two different types of motion can be adjusted: animations which involve ballistic paths, such as falling and jumping, as well as animations involving character movement which require balance and posture, such as walking or running. This dynamics visual...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CGA
• Authors: Ari Shapiro, Sung-Hee Lee
• Keywords: Angular Momentum, CGA 2011, Computational Geometry, Lm Production, Visualization Method