Context Aware Skeletal Animations Using Inverse Kinematics for Real-Time Simulation
Caleb WON
Software Development
Context Aware Skeletal Animations Using Inverse Kinematics for Real-Time Simulation
In this Thesis, I set out to learn what goes into physics integration in skeletal animation by recreating the basic systems for an animated character with Inverse Kinematic enhancements. I was interested in this topic primarily because many third-person action games use this sort of technology to procedurally generate animations that react to their environments, and I was intrigued by the problems that exist in this space where art meets programming.
The most valuable takeaway for me was learning how to approach engineering problems within an artistic context, working to create a result that respected both the physics goals as well as the animation’ s original artistic intent. A good example of this is how my pose generation systems don’ t only consider a target to reach but also respect humanoid anatomical limits, preventing knees from hyperextending or bending in broken directions.
Throughout the project, I learned a lot about engineering a skeletal animation system in a way that enables taking raw data and turning it into character motion and how these animations can be adjusted in real-time. This included topics such as game engine architecture, basic 3D physics queries and context analysis, and the math behind physics topics such as constrained Inverse Kinematics.
Overall, I believe the project ended up as a good foundation that would allow for even more physics effects on the character if provided with extensions to core features like Inverse Kinematic chains and 3D physics.
106 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT