Unity Technologies Sf

Weta Digital Limited

Thomas Stevenson

Edward Sun

Andrew R Phillips

An animation system is provided for generating an animation control rig for character development, configured to manipulate a skeleton of an animated character. Hierarchical representation of puppets includes groups of functions related in a hierarchy according to character specialization for creating the animated rig are derived using base functions of a core component node. The hierarchical nodes may include an archetype node, at least one appendage node, and at least one feature node. In some implementations, portions of a hierarchical node, including the functions from the core component node, may be shared to generate different animation rigs for a variety of characters. In some implementations, portions of a hierarchical node, including the component node functions, may be reused to build similar appendages of a same animation rig.

Hierarchies to generate animation control rigs

Animation control rig generation

An animation system is provided for generating an animation control rig configured to manipulate a skeleton of an animated object. A partition separation process enables software changes to be inserted into uncompiled computer code associated with the animation control rig. Analysis of the uncompiled computer code is implemented relative to a performance metric. Based on the analysis in view of the performance matric, one or more partitions are determined in the uncompiled computer code to partition the code into separate code blocks. The uncompiled code is separated at the partition and updated with the software change. The updated code is compiled to generate the animation control rig.

Performance-based code alteration for animation control rigs

An aspect provides a computer-implemented method for generating an animation control rig configured to manipulate a skeleton of an animated character. The method comprises associatinga plurality of animation control points to an animated skeleton; traversing () a node graph representing the plurality of animation control points of the animated skeleton; analyzingthe hierarchical node graph to determine which nodes of the hierarchical node graph are inversely solvable; analyzingthe hierarchical node graph to determine which other nodes of the hierarchical node graph are solvable with at least one solution that violates a constraint of the animated skeleton; and modifyingan operation of at least one node of the other nodes that violates a constraint to approximate the constraint within a tolerance level.

Methods and systems for generating an animation control rig

Manipulating code for animation control rig generation

In an embodiment, an animator is provided with an indication when a model's component such as a joint or limb is being moved or twisted in a way that would be unnatural and cause unusual stress on the model component. For example, as a shoulder joint is stressed by moving an arm in an extreme position a yellow bar or coloring of the shoulder, arm or other component can grow increasingly bright and shift to red just before a breaking point is reached. An animator can choose to go past the breaking point and the breaking can be modeled and incorporated into the animation.

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Wellington, New Zealand

Thomas Stevenson