Procedural generation of animations with inverse kinematics

Abstract

[en] The field of computer graphics has long been interested in creating realistic looking animations for simulations, games and films. Traditionally, characters are directly moved to create new positions, but rather than generating the pose for every frame, just selected points in time called key frames are captured and the computer interpolates the in-between moves to create a smooth transition. Live action movements can also be applied into a computer generated character with a method called motion capture. By recording a real life actor using video cameras and markers, their performance can be translated to the 3D virtual world to make our avatar move more realistically. Both these methods are expensive in time and cost of development, and the resultant animations are usually static, which leads to a limited immersion or playability due to its repetitive and low interactive moves. The aim of this final degree project is to design and implement a simple tool that allows beginners to easily manipulate 3D characters and create basic procedural animations using inverse kinematic solutions. In this vein, different concepts and techniques need to be studied as well as understanding the Unity game engine to find the optimal way to develop our solution, which will be developed as a Unity asset (see Chapter 4 for further explanation).