Character Animation

Thursdays on AiGameDev.com is dedicated to the theory behind game AI, so expect to find descriptions and links to white papers from a variety of relevant fields. This week is a little different in the last minute build up to GDC Lyon, so I’ll dig up some of the most relevant and interesting […]

When creating character AI, your bottleneck is the presentation; there are never enough animations. Whether you’re making a big-budget production or a small independent game, you can always use more types of movement to bring your characters to life.

This paper from Berkeley introduces techniques for generating fast high-quality blends between animations, so it’s possible to create responsive animations for the AI. This is done by an algorithm for finding transitions automatically, and a learning classifier to measure the realism of motion transitions to help select the best candidate.

The Thursday Theory post this week takes another whitepaper from from the Symposium on Interactive 3D Games and Graphics 2007 that’s helpful for game AI, and breaks it down into the basic ideas. See the previous post in this series for more about character animation.
This second entry is from the University of California and […]

This review of a paper from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows how parametric motions can be combined with a motion graph, and how transitions can be crated automatically between these motions. The resulting technology is capable of generating continuous motion that looks realistic, yet is responsive to interactive control of the parameters and type of motion.

This is the last article of the Siggraph 2007 coverage on AiGameDev.com. Feel free to catch up with all the previous posts here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
This paper is from the University of British Columbia and introduces techniques for physically-based biped locomotion control. There are two contributions in this paper:

It provides […]

Continuing the Siggraph 2007 roundup for character animation (see this previous post to catch up). The remaining papers take an approach leaning towards physical simulation rather than pure motion capture.
One paper from Seoul National University Movement Research Lab presents an biped behaviors simulated from human motion data. Once again, this project has two […]

This paper from CMU Graphics Lab presents techniques for constructing and searching interpolated motion graphs, notably by representing the desired motion as an interpolation of different paths through a motion graph, and applying an anytime A* algorithm to search through the graph of possible motion clips. This approach combines the benefits of the motion graphs for creating natural looking transitions, yet it allows the animation to be constrained physically also.

Siggraph 2007 has been running for a few days now. Make sure you catch up on the three previous posts describing control innovations for character animation.
This paper is from the Texas A&M University Graphics and Animation Lab, and involves optimizing motions based on constraints using a statistical dynamic model. The innovation in this […]

Siggraph 2007 is underway today. See the previous two articles discussing this year’s innovations character animation technology.
Today’s research project is from the Carnegie Mellon Graphics department, and involves creating responsive characters from motion fragments. There are two main innovative ideas behind this paper:

Gathering traces from the gameplay helps model player movement.
Using reinforcement learning […]

Siggraph 2007 starts tomorrow. This post continues from yesterday’s review of character animation technology, discussing how this year’s innovations can be applied to game AI.
There’s another paper from University of Washington Animation Research Labs which presents a near-optimal continuous controller. There are two major innovations used:

A low-dimensional reinforcement learning algorithm to learn a […]

Siggraph 2007 is around the corner, and that means new technology for game developers to play with! In terms of game AI, the most interesting part of the conference is character animation, as it promises to deliver realistic motion for lower investments.
One paper from University of Washington Animation Research Labs presents an active learning […]