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Physics-based animation of primate locomotion

University of British Columbia

Quadrupedal animals commonly appear in films and video games, and their locomotion is of interests to several research and industrial communities. Because of the difficulty of handling and motion capturing these animals, physics-based animation is a promising method for synthesizing quadrupedal locomotion. In this thesis, we investigate control strategies for animating a gorilla model, as an example of primate quadrupeds. We review the state of the art in quadrupedal animation and robotics, and in particular a control framework designed for a simulated dog. We investigate the essential control strategy modifications as necessitated by the unique characteristics of gorilla morphology and locomotion style. We generate controllers for physically realistic walking and trotting gaits for a 3D gorilla model. We also rig a 3D mesh model of a gorilla with Maya, a commercial animation software. Gorilla gait motions are synthesized in our simulation using the rigged skeleton, and synthesized gaits are exported though a motion data pipeline back to Maya for rendering.

Text

2011-09-02

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37098

Computer Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/