Projection-based method for analysis and generation on the multi-contact motion data

Abstract

When motion capture data is applied to virtual characters, the applied motion often exhibits geometric and physical errors, which necessitates a cumbersome refinement process. This paper present a novel framework to efficiently obtain a corrected motion as well as its supporting contact information from multi-contact motion capture data. To this end, first, we present a projective dynamics-based method for optimizing character motions. By carefully defining objective functions and constraints using differential representation of motions, we develop a highly efficient motion optimizer that can create geometrically and dynamically adjusted motions given reference motion data and contact information. Second, we develop a contact optimizer that finds a set of contacts that allows the motion optimizer to generate a motion that best follows the reference motion under dynamic and geometric constraints. This is achieved by iteratively improving the hypothesis on the best set of contacts by getting feedback from the motion optimizer. We demonstrate that our method significantly improves the naturalness of a wide range of motion capture data, from walking to rolling.