Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Robust on-line adaptive footplant detection and enforcement for locomotion

  • Special issue paper
  • Published:
The Visual Computer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A common problem in virtual character computer animation concerns the preservation of the basic foot-floor constraint (or footplant), consisting in detecting it before enforcing it. This paper describes a system capable of generating motion while continuously preserving the footplants for a real-time, dynamically evolving context. This system introduces a constraint detection method that improves classical techniques by adaptively selecting threshold values according to motion type and quality. The footplants are then enforced using a numerical inverse kinematics solver. As opposed to previous approaches, we define the footplant by attaching to it two effectors whose position at the beginning of the constraint can be modified, in order to place the foot on the ground, for example. However, the corrected posture at the constraint beginning is needed before it starts to ensure smoothness between the unconstrained and constrained states. We, therefore, present a new approach based on motion anticipation, which computes animation postures in advance, according to time-evolving motion parameters, such as locomotion speed and type. We illustrate our on-line approach with continuously modified locomotion patterns, and demonstrate its ability to correct motion artifacts, such as foot sliding, to change the constraint position and to modify from a straight to a curved walk motion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Baerlocher, P., Boulic, R.: An inverse kinematic architecture enforcing an arbitrary number of strict priority levels. Visual. Comput. 20(6), 402–417 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bindiganavale, R., Badler, N.: Motion abstraction and mapping with spatial constraints. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1537, pp. 70–83 (1998)

  3. Boulic, R., Ulciny, B., Thalmann, D.: Versatile walk engine. J of Game Development 1(1), 29–50 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bruderlin, A., Calvert, T.: Knowledge-driven, interactive animation of human running. In: Graphics Interface ’96, pp. 213–221, Canadian Information Processing Society. Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1996)

  5. Bruderlin, A., Williams, L.: Motion signal processing. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 97–104 (1995)

  6. Butz, M., Sigaud, O., Gerard, P.: Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York (2003)

  7. Choi, K., Ko, H.: Online motion retargetting. J. Visual. Comput. Anim. 11, 223–235 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Choi, M., Lee, J., Shin, S.: Planning biped locomotion using motion capture data and probabilistic roadmaps. ACM Trans. Graph. (2003)

  9. Chung, S., Hahn, J.: Animation of human walking in virtual environments. In: Proceedings of Computer Animation, Geneva, IEEE Computer Society (1999)

  10. Conde, T., Thalmann, D.: An artificial life environment for autonomous virtual agents with multi-sensorial and multi-perceptives features. Comput. Anim. Virtual World 15, 311–318 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Girard, M.: Interactive design of 3-D computer-animated legged animal motion. In: Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, pp. 131–150 (1987)

  12. Glardon, P., Boulic, R., Thalmann, D.: A coherent locomotion engine extrapolating beyond experimental data. In: Proceedings of Computer Animation and Social Agent, pp. 73–83, Geneva (2004)

  13. Glardon, P., Boulic, R., Thalmann, D.: On-line adapted transition between locomotion and jump. In: Proceedings of Computer Graphics International, pp. 44–49, IEEE Computer Society (2005)

  14. Gleicher, M.: Motion editing with spacetime constraints. In: Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, pp. 139–148 (1997)

  15. Gleicher, M.: Comparing constraint-based motion editing methods. Graphical Models 63(2), 107–134 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  16. H-ANIM: Humanoid animation working group. www.hanim.org (2005)

  17. Hreljac, A., Marshall, R.: Algorithms to determine event timing during normal walking using kinematic data. J. Biomech. 33(6), 783–786 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ko, H., Badler, N.: Animating human locomotion with inverse dynamics. IEEE Comput. Graph. Applic. 16(2), 50–58 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kovar, L., Gleicher, M.: Flexible automatic motion blending with registration curves. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, pp. 214–224 (2003)

  20. Kovar, L., Schreiner, J., Gleicher, M.: Footskate cleanup for motion capture editing. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, pp. 97–104 (2002)

  21. Labbé, V., Sigaud, O., Codognet, P.: Anticipation of periodic movements in real time 3D environments. In: Proceedings of ABiALS Workshop, Los Angeles (2004)

  22. Le Callennec, B., Boulic, R.: Interactive motion deformation with prioritized constraints. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation (2004)

  23. Lee, J., Chai, J., Reitsma, P., Hodgins, J., Pollard, N.: Interactive control of avatars animated with human motion data. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series (2002)

  24. Lee, J., Shin, S.: A hierarchical approach to interactive motion editing for human-like figures. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 39–48 (1999)

  25. Liu, K., Popović, Z.: Synthesis of complex dynamic character motion from simple animations. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 408–416 (2002)

  26. Maya®: Alias systems corp. www.alias.com (2005)

  27. Menardais, S., Kulpa, R., Arnaldi, B.: Synchronisation for dynamic blending of motions. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation (2004)

  28. Multon, F., France, L., Cani-Gascuel, M., Debunne, G.: Computer animation of human walking: a survey. J. Visual. Comput. Anim. 10(1), 39–54 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Park, S., Shin, H., Shin, S.: On-line locomotion generation based on motion blending. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation (2002)

  30. Popović, Z., Witkin, A.: Physically based motion transformation. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 11–20 (1999)

  31. Reynolds, C.: Steering behaviors For autonomous characters. In: Proceedings of Game Developers Conference, pp. 763–782 (1999)

  32. Rose, C., Cohen, M., Bodenheimer, B.: Verbs and adverbs: Multidimensional motion interpolation. IEEE Comput. Graph. Applic. 18(5), 32–41 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Rose, C., Sloan, P., Cohen, M.: Artist-directed inverse-kinematics using radial basis function interpolation. In: Proceedings of Eurographics, vol. 20(3) (2001)

  34. Safonova, A., Hodgins, J., Pollard, N.: Synthesizing physically realistic human motion in low-dimensional, behavior-specific spaces. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series (2004)

  35. Salvati, M., Le Callennec, B., Boulic, R.: A generic method for geometric contraints detection. In: Proceedings of Eurographics, short presentation (2004)

  36. Shin, H., Kovar, L., Gleicher, M.: Physical touch-up of human motions. In: Proceedings of Pacific Graphics, pp. 194–203, IEEE Computer Society (2003)

  37. Shin, H., Lee, J., Shin, S., Gleicher, M.: Computer puppetry: an importance-based approach. ACM Trans. Graph. 20(2), 67–94 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Sun, H., Metaxas, D.: Automating Gait Generation. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series (2001)

  39. Unuma, M., Anjyo, K., Takeuchi, R.: Fourier principles for emotion-based human figure. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 91–96 (1995)

  40. van de Panne, M.: From footprints to animation. Comput. Graph. Forum 16(4), 211–223 (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Veloso, M., Stone, P., Bowling, M.: Anticipation: a key for collaboration in a team of agents. In: Proceedings of Conference on Autonomous Agents (1998)

  42. Witkin, A., Popović, Z.: Motion warping. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH, Annual Conference Series, pp. 105–108 (1995)

  43. Wooten, W., Hodgins, J.: Simulating leaping, tumbling, landing and balancing humans. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2000)

  44. Yamane, K., Nakamura, Y.: Natural motion animation through constraining and deconstraining at will. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graph. 9(3), 352–360 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virtual Reality Lab, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Pascal Glardon, Ronan Boulic & Daniel Thalmann

Authors
  1. Pascal Glardon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ronan Boulic
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Daniel Thalmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pascal Glardon.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Glardon, P., Boulic, R. & Thalmann, D. Robust on-line adaptive footplant detection and enforcement for locomotion. Visual Comput 22, 194–209 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-006-0376-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-006-0376-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation