Extended Spatial Keyframing for Complex Character Animation

Abstract

As 3D computer animation becomes more accessible to novice users, it makes it possible for these users to create high-quality animations. This paper introduces a more powerful system to create highly articulated character animations with an intuitive setup then the previous research, Spatial Keyframing (SK). As the main purpose of SK was the rapid generation of primitive animation over quality animation, we propose Extended Spatial Keyframing (ESK) that exploits a global control structure coupled with multiple sets of spatial keyframes, and hierarchical relationship between controllers. The generated structure can be flexibly embedded into the given rigged character, and the system enables the given characte.r to be animated delicately by user performance. During the performance, the movement of the highest ranking controllers across the control hierarchy is recorded in layered style to increase the level of detail for final motions