Re: Humanoid models


Subject: Re: Humanoid models
From: Jari P Saukkonen (jsaukkon@cs.Helsinki.FI)
Date: Tue Nov 30 1999 - 21:28:03 EET


On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Ulf Sjöström (Origon) wrote:

> Ok, it would be good if we had a standard in humanoid models. I have made two boxmen, 
> with different layouts of bodyparts. So it's up to you to decide what
> bodyparts we need, but remeber that having to much bodyparts will not
> only need powerful computers but many hours spent by animators to make
> them move.

Most likely we are going to implement a skeletal animation system, which
basically means that instead of doing the usual way of creating huge piles
of predefined keyframed animations, we just define bodyparts (I call them
"bones") and joints between them, which are much more easier to animate. 

The actual bones will be roughly the ones you had in the simpler model of
your boxmen-proposal. When we have the characteristics of each joint (how
much and in what directions it can turn) it's possible to calculate the
"lowest-energy" position at any time.

For example, when we move the "foot" bone a bit upwards, other parts of
the leg will move and the knee joint will correctly bend to reflect
the new position.

This gives us freedom to move any limb to whatever direction we want
without disturbing ongoing "sequences", for example you can imagine a
man fighting while riding a horse. If we come up with some nice control
system we could allow players to move their body in whatever way they
want to make gestures and such.

(Disclaimer: nothing of this has been "decided", this is just my personal
vision which I'm willing to code in the future)

++ dazzt

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