A Real-time Motion Adaptation Method using Spatial Relationships between a Virtual Character and Its Surrounding Environment

Abstract

Recently, character motion have been used extensively in the entertainment business, and researchers have investigated algorithms of reproducing, editing, and simulating mimic human movements. Also, many recent researches have suggested how a character interacts with its surrounding environment in terms of motion. Specially, spatial relationships of the environment have been introduced for adapting and preserving character motion. In this paper, we propose a motion adaptation technique preserving a spatial property between a virtual character and the configuration of its surrounding space. Additionally, we report on experimental results of smoothly adapted motions in various environmental structures with original motions such as walk, jump, and tumbling.

Fig. 1. Different configuration of the character’s surrounding environment (e.g. a changed terrain in the center area), and an adapted motion to the different condition

Fig. 2. Relationship descriptor points for the adapted character motion(spheres in the terrain)

Fig. 3. Relationship descriptor points modified according to the change of terrain position(spheres in the terrain)

Fig. 4. Original motions of the character(e.g.walk, jump, tumbling) and descriptor points placed in the path

Fig. 5. Adapted motions with spatial relationships of the character’s surrounding environment(e.g.walk, jump, tumbling motions)

Table 1. Algorithm: our real-time motion adaptation method using spatial relationships

Table 2. Results of motion adaptation between the virtual character and its surrounding environment with the change of terrain position