System and method for animating virtual characters

Abstract

System and methods for defining and applying animations to virtual characters with interchangeable body parts that may be combined to form composite virtual characters are disclosed. According to aspects of the invention, a software program running on a gaming platform comprises a plurality of virtual characters, each comprising a plurality of interchangeable body parts. An animation clip may be defined for an interchangeable body part of a first virtual character. The animation clip may be defined for the first virtual character's interchangeable body party using a virtual skeleton that has the bones of the interchangeable body part and the bones of one or more generic body parts. The defined animation clip may control one or more of the bones of the interchangeable body part and one or more of the bones of the one or more generic body parts.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates generally to animating a virtual character, such as those found in video games or animated movies, and more particularly to animating a virtual character comprised of parts of other virtual characters.[0002]Animating a virtual character typically involves building an animated three-dimensional (3D) character model that is rigged with a virtual skeleton. A character rig generally includes the character's virtual skeleton bound to the character's 3D mesh or skin. The virtual skeleton typically includes a plurality of joints and / or bones that can be manipulated to move or deform the model into different poses. The virtual skeleton provides the basic form of the virtual character. For example, a humanoid virtual character may have a virtual skeleton that has bones representing a human form (e.g., a head bone, spine bones, arm / hand bones, leg / feet bones, pelvic bones, etc.). On the other hand, a reptilian virtual character ma...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0021]These and other aspects of the invention are more fully comprehended upon review of this disclosure.

Problems solved by technology

Of course, this is merely an example, and the number of composite virtual characters is limited only by the number of virtual characters available for combination.

To illustrate some of these challenges, consider the case of a composite character that combines the upper body of virtual character A with the lower body of virtual character B. If virtual character A and virtual character B have distinct and conflicting animation clips denoting different behaviors and personalities, simply applying the predefined animation clips for virtual character A and virtual character B to their respective body parts may result in disjointed and unconvincing animations for the composite virtual character.

Another challenge of animating composite virtual characters is properly aligning and layering the animations between the various parts of the combined virtual characters, as Character A and Character B's animations are built for skeletons that have no notion of the final composite skeleton.

This process, however, is labor intensive and requires an animator or some other designer to make decisions as to which bone animations will affect the respective bone(s) in the composite skeleton.

But this solution is also burdensome and impractical.

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