Avid Technology Limited

Softimage

Yves Boucher

Rejean Gagne

Vincent Verville

A system and method for defining and employing behaviours for articulated chains in computer animations. At least one control, such as a shape control or a resolution plane control, is defined for the articulated chain and is employed as a constraint by the animation engine when animating the chain with inverse kinematics. Each control comprises two or more keys, each key comprising a couple of an effector direction vector and an associated constraint. In the case of shape control keys, the associated constraints comprise a list of preferred limb orientations and in the case of resolution plane control keys, the associated constraints comprise a preferred orientation for the resolution plane. For any given goal, selected control keys are interpolated with appropriate weightings to obtain a resulting constraint to be employed by the animation engine.

System and method of defining and employing behaviors for articulated

A method of and a system for controlling an inverse kinematics generated animation of an articulated chain is described. A resolution plane in a default orientation is computed by determining a root-effector vector extending from a root of an articulated chain to an end effector of the articulated chain and letting the resolution plane extend through the root-effector vector. A control icon representative of a position relative to the root is visually displayed. The resolution plane of an articulated chain is manipulated by manipulating the icon and re-determining the resolution plane using the root-effector vector and a root-control vector extending from the root to the icon. The animation of the articulated chain is constrained relative to the resolution plane and a solution of positions and orientations of all limbs of the articulated chain in achieving a goal is computed and displayed.

Control solutions for the resolution plane of inverse kinematic chains

A three-dimensional graphic object appearing in an animation is deformed to simulate the effects of motion on the object. A user can selectively apply a stretch, yield, or flex deformation effect to the control vertices of the object, to change the shape of the object as a function of any of a linear velocity, angular velocity, linear acceleration, or angular acceleration of the object. Various other parameters for each of these deformation effects can also be selected and set by the user, including a sensitivity to the motion in generating the deformation and a maximum deformation. The flex deformation can selectively be set to either a linear or curved profile, simulating the effect of friction applied by the environment on one or more surfaces of the object. The stretch deformation can selectively be set to either a constant or a free volume to simulate the effect of inertia, causing a body to elongate or shrink in the direction of the movement. The yield deformation can be set either a linear or curved profile, simulating the displacement of an object's internal matter toward one end that occurs, relative to the direction of the object's motion, i.e., causing one end to bulge. For each control vertex on the object, an effect offset is determined for each motion component and for each selected deformation effect. The sum of the effect offsets for the control vertex represents a total offset that is added to the original control vertex to determine a deformed control vertex. This step is repeated for all control vertices to produce the deformed object.

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Terrebonne, Canada

Yves Boucher