Motion Capture Animation Research Articles

모션 캡처 애니메이션 프로세스 연구

모션 캡처 애니메이션 프로세스 연구

Re-imagining the Literary Brand

This paper argues that the industrial contexts of re-imagining, or transforming, literary icons deploy the promotional strategies that are associated with what are usually seen as lesser, or purely commercial, genres. Promotional paratexts reveal transformations of content that position audiences to receive them as creative innovations, superior in many senses to their literary precursors due to the distinctive expertise of creative professionals. Analysing Spielberg's film, The Adventures of Tintin (2011), and Andrew Motion's fictional continuation of Stevenson's Treasure Island, it argues that literary fiction and cinematic texts associated with celebrated authors or auteurist producer-directors share branding discourses characteristic of contemporary consumer culture.

Capture, hold, release: an ontology of motion capture

ABSTRACTIn proposing an ontology of motion capture, this paper identifies three modalities – capture, hold, release – to conceptualise the peculiar affordances of motion capture technology in its relationship to a performer's movement. Motion capture is unique among contemporary moving image media in its capacity to re-perform a performer's recorded movement a potentially limitless number of times, for example, as applied to innumerable different CG characters. Unlike live-action film or even rotoscoping (motion capture's closest equivalent), the movement extracted from the captured performance lives on, but only by way of the inimagable (non-visible) domain of motion data. Motion data ‘holds' movement itself in inimagable form, and ‘releases' it in the domain of the digital moving image. This tri-fold conception relates an important dimension of (Heideggerian) Being to the idea of movement as fundamental to an ontology or ‘being' of motion capture. At the same time, the proposed ontology challenges the ‘illusion of life' metaphor as the accepted definition of (motion capture) animation. The Oscar's Special Rules for the Animated Feature Film Award asserts that ‘by itself' motion capture does not qualify as an animation method. The notion that a technology could do or be anything ‘by itself' affords a conceptual leap towards Heideggerian thinking on the nature of Being as embodied in temporality, in which past, present and future are unified. In its capacity to operate outside the domain of the digital moving image, the concept of ‘movement itself' not only articulates an ontology of motion capture: motion capture itself can be understood to be brought into being by movement, thus also challenging the notion that capture technology has a parasitic relationship to a performer's originary performance.

Avatar and Nature Spirituality

“To put it mildly, the world is a mess.” Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State, 27 July 2014 James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) was the first film to combine stereoscopic imagining and motion-capture animation for a flawless 3-D presentation. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and won three, for Cinematography, Art Direction, and Visual Effects. It was also the first box-office hit to gross more than $2 billion, and it remains the highest-grossing film to date. It made cinematic history. But it was more than an aesthetic triumph. Avatar is also a cultural critique and an intellectual provocation. It’s a science-fiction about Earthlings fighting with extraterrestrials—tall, blue humanoids called the Na’vi—on a forest world called Pandora. The conflict is the old battle of good against evil, but with a twist: in Avatar, it is the aliens that are good. The human hero, the soldier Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), deserts his unit and switches sides to fight with the Na’vi against his own colony and ultimately against his own civilization.

3D Animation Technologies and Efficiency

3D animation technologies include FFD, Hierarchies and Kinematics (FK and IK), Dynamic animation, Keyframe, Time based animation, Non-linear animation, Path animation, Layered animation, and Motion capture animation etc. They are related with the efficiency of 3D animation. This thesis discusses these technologies separately and suggests methods to enhance the efficiency of 3D animation.

Seeing Movement: On Motion Capture Animation and James Cameron’sAvatar

This article proposes that motion capture (mocap) animation relates movement to cinema in a unique way, in that rather than being a quality of the profilmic, in mocap animation movement is itself directly the profilmic. Motion capture records imagery consisting of data of a profilmic object’s positional change in space, rather than data of the object itself. Using this critical distinction between movement and object, the author argues that the experience of mocap changes the nature of the image so that it involves, or is, a specific sense of being, rather than seeing. Due to its thematic treatment of seeing as well as its own application of mocap technology, she also draws on James Cameron’s film Avatar (2009) as an illustration for this thesis on mocap and seeing/being. In the process, she revisits our experiences of seeing light when watching films and considers how mocap and the experience of movement change our engagement with cinema. This discussion is thus not only about our understanding of and interaction with the moving image, but also points to how we can understand movement and being, and the sum of our sensory experiences in the world of cinema ensconced in light and darkness.

Optimization-based key frame extraction for motion capture animation

In this paper, we present a new solution for extracting key frames from motion capture data using an optimization algorithm to obtain compact and sparse key frame data that can represent the original dense human body motion capture animation. The use of the genetic algorithm helps determine the optimal solution with global exploration capability while the use of a probabilistic simplex method helps expedite the speed of convergence. By finding the chromosome that maximizes the fitness function, the algorithm provides the optimal number of key frames as well as the low reconstruction error with an ordinary interpolation technique. The reconstruction error is computed between the original motion and the reconstruction one by the weighted differences of joint positions and velocities. The resulting set of key frames is obtained by iterative application of the algorithm with initial populations generated randomly and intelligently. We also present experiments which demonstrate that the method can effectively extract key frames with a high compression ratio and reconstruct all other non key frames with high quality.

Motion Path Editing Based on Constraint Detection

This paper introduces a method for interactive direct manipulation of motion capture animation, which allows a user to alter positional properties of a motion and preserves the motions’ quality. The algorithm contains three stages: motion analysis, motion path editing, and constraint reconstruction. Our experiments show that by using the algorithm human motion can be transformed successfully from the old path to the new path.

Whole body CT, motion capture, and 3D computer animation findings in three working dogs with early onset lower back pain

Whole body CT, motion capture, and 3D computer animation findings in three working dogs with early onset lower back pain

Corpus Corvus

Corpus Corvus is a mixed reality performance artwork that utilizes stereoscopic projection, motion capture animation, an integrated physical/media choreographic vocabulary, and electroacoustic composition to explore the Pacific Northwest Native American myth of the raven as god and thief who steals the sun and creates the universe. Formally, the work explores the relationship between movement of a physical body and stereoscopic animation in a physical/digital three-dimensional image field. The animation is generated from motion capture data and kinesthetic media composition processes based on physical choreography. Through precise temporal alignment and stereoscopic theatrical effect, the projected animation is perceived to surround the performing body in physical space. The art/research process contextualizing Corpus Corvus is a practice-based exploration and discovery of an emerging poetics that extends the human sensory system into immersive media perceptual hyperspaces. This paper illuminates the process of research, manifestation, and discovery that informs the artwork and its poetics.

CSLML: a markup language for expressive Chinese sign language synthesis

AbstractThis paper presents a Chinese Sign Language Markup Language (CSLML), which is developed for expressive Chinese sign language synthesis by introducing features and structure of sign language prosody. The tags of CSLML are divided into two levels: function level and phonetic level. Function level provides abstract information about signed content and prosody, so it facilitates text annotating for text‐driven automatic synthetic system and adapts to diversified synthetic methods, such as motion capture animation or image‐based synthesis, which may not be good at processing lower‐level information. Phonetic level provides detailed behavioral manners based on phonetics and phonology to interpret the meaning in function level. It facilitates creation and edit of any motions. The two levels co‐exist in CSLML documents and high‐level description can be mapped into corresponding low‐level behavior to provide one‐to‐many variability and expression of synthesis. Therefore, we also introduce a framework for this mapping processing and exhibit results of our animated prototype system based on this framework. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The effectiveness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation instruction: Animation versus dispatcher through a cellular phone

We developed a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instruction programme using motion capture animation integrated into cellular phones. We compared the effectiveness of animation-assisted CPR instruction with dispatcher-assisted instruction in participants with no previous CPR training. This study was a single blind cluster randomized trial. Participants were allocated to either animation-assisted CPR (AA-CPR; 8 clusters, 44 participants) group or dispatcher-assisted CPR (DA-CPR; 8 clusters, 41 participants). The overall performance and time of each step of CPR cycle were recorded on a checklist by 3 assessors. The objective performances were evaluated using the Resusci Anne SkillReporter Manikin. Differences between the groups were compared using an independent t-test adjusted for the effect of clustering. The AA-CPR group had a significantly better checklist score (p<0.001) and time to completion of 1 CPR cycle (p<0.001) than the DA-CPR group. In an objective assessment of psychomotor skill, the AA-CPR group demonstrated more accurate hand positioning (68.8+/-3.6%, p=0.033) and compression rate (72.4+/-3.7%, p=0.015) than DA-CPR group. However, the accuracy of compression depth (p=0.400), ventilation volume (p=0.977) and flow rate (p=0.627) were below 30% in both groups. Audiovisual animated CPR instruction through a cellular phone resulted in better scores in checklist assessment and time interval compliance in participants without CPR skill compared to those who received CPR instructions from a dispatcher; however, the accuracy of important psychomotor skill measures was unsatisfactory in both groups.

A Study about the Efficiency of Motion Capture Animation for Real-Time Virtual Characters

A Study about the Efficiency of Motion Capture Animation for Real-Time Virtual Characters

A Study about the Efficiency of Motion Capture Animation for Real-Time Virtual Characters

A Study about the Efficiency of Motion Capture Animation for Real-Time Virtual Characters

Interactive generation of falling motions

AbstractInteractive generation of falling motions for virtual character with realistic responses to unexpected push, hit or collision with the environment is interesting work to many applications, such as computer games, film production, and virtual training environments. In this paper, we propose a new method to simulate protective behaviors in response to the ways a human may fall to the ground as well as incorporate the reactive motions into motion capture animation. It is based on simulated trajectory prediction and biomechanics inspired adjustment. According to the external perturbations, our system predicts a motion trajectory and uses it to select a desired transition‐to sequence. At the same time, physically generated falling motions will fill in the gap between the two‐motion capture sequences before and after the transition. Utilizing a parallel simulation, our method is able to predict a character's motion trajectory real‐time under dynamics, which ensures that the character moves towards the target sequence and makes the character's behavior more life‐like. Our controller is designed to generate physically plausible motion following an upcoming motion with adjustment from biomechanics rules, which is key to avoid an unconscious look for a character during the transition. Based on a relatively small motion database, our system is effective in generating various interactive falling behaviors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

SCAPE

We introduce the SCAPE method (Shape Completion and Animation for PEople)---a data-driven method for building a human shape model that spans variation in both subject shape and pose. The method is based on a representation that incorporates both articulated and non-rigid deformations. We learn a pose deformation model that derives the non-rigid surface deformation as a function of the pose of the articulated skeleton. We also learn a separate model of variation based on body shape. Our two models can be combined to produce 3D surface models with realistic muscle deformation for different people in different poses, when neither appear in the training set. We show how the model can be used for shape completion --- generating a complete surface mesh given a limited set of markers specifying the target shape. We present applications of shape completion to partial view completion and motion capture animation. In particular, our method is capable of constructing a high-quality animated surface model of a moving person, with realistic muscle deformation, using just a single static scan and a marker motion capture sequence of the person.

Entropy‐based motion extraction for motion capture animation

AbstractIn this paper, we present a new segmentation solution for extracting motion patterns from motion capture data by searching for critical keyposes in the motion sequence. A rank is established for critical keyposes that identifies the significance of the directional change in motion data. The method is based on entropy metrics, specifically the mutual information measure. Displacement histograms between frames are evaluated and the mutual information metric is employed in order to calculate the inter‐frame dependency. The most significant keypose identifies the largest directional change in the motion data. This will have the lowest mutual information level from all the candidate keyposes. Less significant keyposes are then listed with higher mutual information levels. The results show that the method has higher sensitivity in the directional change than methods based on the magnitude of the velocity alone. This method is intended to provide a summary of a motion clip by ranked keyposes, which is highly useful in motion browsing and motion retrieve database system. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Entropy-based motion extraction for motion capture animation

In this paper, we present a new segmentation solution for extracting motion patterns from motion capture data by searching for critical keyposes in the motion sequence. A rank is established for cr...

Dynamic response for motion capture animation

Human motion capture embeds rich detail and style which is difficult to generate with competing animation synthesis technologies. However, such recorded data requires principled means for creating responses in unpredicted situations, for example reactions immediately following impact. This paper introduces a novel technique for incorporating unexpected impacts into a motion capture-driven animation system through the combination of a physical simulation which responds to contact forces and a specialized search routine which determines the best plausible re-entry into motion library playback following the impact. Using an actuated dynamic model, our system generates a physics-based response while connecting motion capture segments. Our method allows characters to respond to unexpected changes in the environment based on the specific dynamic effects of a given contact while also taking advantage of the realistic movement made available through motion capture. We show the results of our system under various conditions and with varying responses using martial arts motion capture as a testbed.

A constrained inverse kinematics technique for real-time motion capture animation

In this paper we present a constrained inverse kinematics algorithm for real-time motion capture in virtual environments, that has its origins in the simulation of multi-body systems. We apply this algorithm to an articulated human skeletal model using an electromagnetic motion tracking system with a small number of sensors to create avatar postures. The method offers efficient inverse kinematics computation and it is also generalised for the configurations of an articulated skeletal model. We investigate the possibility of capturing fast gestures by analysing the convergence patterns of the algorithm with the motion tracking sampling frequency for a range of actions.