Rig-Space Physics

 

We present a method that brings the benefits of physics-based simulations to traditional animation pipelines. We formulate the equations of motions in the subspace of deformations defined by an animator’s rig.

August 5, 2012
ACM SIGGRAPH 2012

 

Authors

Fabian Hahn (Disney Research/ETH Joint PhD)

Sebastian Martin (Disney Research)

Bernhard Thomaszewski (Disney Research)

Robert W. Sumner (Disney Research)

Stelian Coros (Disney Research)

Markus Gross (Disney Research/ETH Zurich)

Rig-Space Physics

Abstract

Our framework fits seamlessly into the workflow typically employed by artists, as our output consists of animation curves that are identical in nature to the result of manual keyframing. Artists can, therefore, explore the full spectrum between handcrafted animation and unrestricted physical simulation. To enhance the artist’s control, we provide a method that transforms stiffness values defined on rig parameters to a non-homogeneous distribution of material parameters for the underlying FEM model. In addition, we use automatically extracted high-level rig parameters to intuitively edit the results of our simulations, and also to speed up computation. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, we create compelling results by adding rich physical motions to coarse input animations. In the absence of artist input, we create realistic passive motion directly in rig space.

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