Procedural movement for articulated figure animation

Abstract The creativity and effectiveness of an animator can be enhanced with computer-based tools that incorporate knowledge about the problem being animated. This is particularly true of human figure animation, which is complex and has many degrees of freedom. Procedural systems that incorporate the knowledge directly into the algorithm are best suited to structured movements, which are often repeated whereas expert systems that reason on the basis of a knowledge base are best suited to more general and unstructured movement problems. This paper describes procedural movement generators for human locomotion and grasping. A few key parameters allow the animator to create a feasible movement pattern and additional movement attributes make it possible to customize the patterns to match the movement characteristics of the particular figure being animated. These procedural movement generators are being evaluated in the general purpose Life Forms system for human figure animation.