Where Does Animation End and AI Start, with Lucas Kovar (Video)

Two weeks ago, we organized a masterclass with animation programming expert Lucas Kovar about a particularly relevant topic: “How to Build a Perfect Animation System?” Over the course of the 2h session, we covered all the different concepts that a next-gen system requires to create both realistic and responsive motion.

One particular part of this system is not particularly difficult to write, nor is it very complex, but it holds the whole system together. It’s where animation starts and AI ends, or vice versa — depending which way you look at it. We called this the locomotion system, but sometimes it’s also called a character controller. Watch the video below for more details.

About Lucas

Lucas Kovar is a leading researcher in the field of animation, having written the original white papers on Motion Graphs and Motion Families (along with Mike Gleicher) and many other papers also — which have gathered over 500 academic references since their publication. Lucas currently working as an animation programmer at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), and has worked as an animation consultant for different publishers in the games industry.

Audio / Video Recording

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NOTE: This video player is based on OpenSource technology. If you’d like any further information about it, have feedback about how well it works, or would like to know how it was customized, please see this blog post.