Prose warping for realtime animation

Abstract

3D computer games with animated characters are restricted to the animations provided by an animator. This thesis explores a method for having a character perform different animations using only simple base animations and discrete poses incorporating a digital signal processing approach. Treating the animations as a series of digital signals allows digital signal processing techniques to be applied to create new motions. This facilitates a decreased animator workload while allowing a character to interact better with its environ­ ment. These techniques involve treating an animation as a continuous signal, sampling it and shifting it about another signal to combine an animation and a pose. To eliminate dead poses the use of filters on animations with a view to creating new animations with the aid of timewarping is also explored