Character Animation

using Skinning
Articulated Character Models
 Low-dimensional animation controls
for characters

Image from https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PZ8q1

Articulated Character Models
Articulated Character Models
 Forward kinematics (FK) describes the positions
of the body parts as a function of joint angles
 Body parts are
usually called “bones”
 Angles are the low-dimensional control.

𝛼0

𝑥0 , 𝑦0
Articulated Character Models
 Forward kinematics (FK) describes the positions
of the body parts as a function of joint angles
 Body parts are
usually called “bones”
 Angles are the low-dimensional control.
𝑥1 , 𝑦1
β0
𝛼0

𝑥0 , 𝑦0
Articulated Character Models
 Forward kinematics describes the positions of
the body parts as a function of joint angles
 Body parts are
usually called “bones”
 Angles are the low-dimensional control.
𝑥1 , 𝑦1
β0
Articulated Character Models
 Forward kinematics (FK) describes the positions
of the body parts as a function of joint angles
 Body parts are
usually called “bones”
 Angles are the low-dimensional control.
Forward kinematics

 Inverse kinematics (IK) specifies constraint

locations for bones and solves for joint angles.

Inverse kinematics
Images from blog "Simple Inverse Kinematics",
Dave Pagurek, 2017
Animating Characters
 How to animate human
characters ?
Animating Characters
 How to animate human
characters ?

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Animating Characters
 How to animate human
characters ?
 Embed a skeleton into a
detailed character mesh
Animating Characters
 Embed a skeleton into a
detailed character mesh
 Animate “bones”
 Change the joint
angles over time
 Keyframing, procedural,
etc.
Animating Characters
 Embed a skeleton into a
detailed character mesh
 Animate “bones”
 Change the joint
angles over time
 Keyframing, procedural,
etc.
 Bind skin vertices to bones
 Animate skeleton, skin will
move with it
Rigging - Skeletons Building and Binding

https://youtu.be/FiEdSVtXIls
Hierarchical Modeling
 Very common in modeling articulated characters
 Chain up motion in different hierarchy

https://youtu.be/0etry3MVa90
Skinning/Enveloping
 Need to infer how skin deforms from bone
transformations.
 Most popular technique:
Skeletal Subspace Deformation (SSD), or
simply Skinning
 Other aliases
 vertex blending
 matrix palette skinning
 linear blend skinning
SSD/Skinning
 Each bone has a deformation of
the space around it (rotation, translation)

Vertices on a bone
Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 Each bone has a deformation of
the space around it (rotation, translation)

Transform the
whole arm Rotate forearm

Transform the
skin/vertices Rotate the skin/vertices

Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin
to a single bone ?

Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin
to a single bone ?
 Skin will be rigid:
 In the middle of a limb,
the skin points follow the bone rotation
Rotate forearm

Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin
to a single bone ?
 Skin will be rigid:
 In the middle of a limb,
the skin points follow the bone rotation
Rotate forearm
 At joints, it will stretch badly

Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin to
a single bone ?
 Skin will be rigid:
 In the middle of a limb,
the skin points follow the bone rotation
 At joints, it will stretch badly
 Let’s attach a vertex to many bones at
once!

Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin to
a single bone ?
 Skin will be rigid:
 In the middle of a limb,
the skin points follow the bone rotation
Rotate forearm
 At joints, it will stretch badly
 Let’s attach a vertex to many bones at
once!
 Skin will be deformed according to a
“weighted combination” of the bones Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
SSD/Skinning
 What if we attach each vertex of the skin to
a single bone ?
 Skin will be rigid:
 In the middle of a limb,
the skin points follow the bone rotation
Rotate forearm
 At joints, it will stretch badly
 Let’s attach a vertex to many bones at
once!
 Skin will be deformed according to a
“weighted combination” of the bones Images from Liu, Feng, Ronghua Liang, and Dahai Ye. "Skeleton
Subspace Deformation with Displacement Map."
Vertex Weights
 We’ll assign a weight 𝑤𝑖𝑗 for each vertex 𝑝𝑖
for each bone 𝐵𝑗
 “How much vertex 𝑖 should move with bone 𝑗 ?”
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 1 means 𝑝𝑖 is rigidly attached to bone 𝑗
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 0 means bone 𝑗 has no influence over 𝑝𝑖
Examples

James & Twigg 2005

Examples
Colored regions are
attached to 1 bone

James & Twigg 2005

Examples
Colored regions are
attached to 1 bone

Black regions are attached to

more than 1 bone

Note how they are near joints

James & Twigg 2005

Examples
Colored regions are
attached to 1 bone

Black regions are attached to

more than 1 bone

Note how they are near joints

James & Twigg 2005

Examples
Colored regions are
attached to 1 bone

Black regions are attached to

more than 1 bone

Note how they are near joints

James & Twigg 2005

Vertex Weights
 We’ll assign a weight 𝑤𝑖𝑗 for each vertex 𝑝𝑖
for each bone 𝐵𝑗
 “How much vertex 𝑖 should move with bone 𝑗 ?”
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 1 means 𝑝𝑖 is rigidly attached to bone 𝑗
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 0 means bone 𝑗 has no influence over 𝑝𝑖

 Weight properties
 Weights to be non-negative
 Sum over all bones to be 1 for each vertex
Vertex Weights cont’d
 We’ll assign a weight 𝑤𝑖𝑗 for each vertex 𝑝𝑖
for each bone 𝐵𝑗
 “How much vertex 𝑖 should move with bone 𝑗 ?”
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 1 means 𝑝𝑖 is rigidly attached to bone 𝑗
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 0 means bone 𝑗 has no influence over 𝑝𝑖

 We limit the number of bones N that can

influence a single vertex
 4 bones/vertex is a usual choice
 Why ?
Vertex Weights cont’d
 We’ll assign a weight 𝑤𝑖𝑗 for each vertex 𝑝𝑖
for each bone 𝐵𝑗
 “How much vertex 𝑖 should move with bone 𝑗 ?”
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 1 means 𝑝𝑖 is rigidly attached to bone 𝑗
 𝑤𝑖𝑗 = 0 means bone 𝑗 has no influence over 𝑝𝑖

 We limit the number of bones N that can

influence a single vertex
 4 bones/vertex is a usual choice
 Why ? You most often don’t need very many.
 Storage space is an issue.
How to compute
vertex positions ?
Linear Blend Skinning

 Basic Idea 1: Transform each vertex 𝑝𝑖 with

each bone as if it was tied to it rigidly.
 Basic Idea 2: Then blend the results using
the weights
Computing Vertex Positions
Rest (“bind”) pose
 Vertex 𝑝0 has weights
𝑤01 = 0.5, 𝑤02 = 0.5
Bone 1: T1 Bone 2: T2

p0
“Skin”
Computing Vertex Positions
Rest (“bind”) pose
 Vertex 𝑝0 has weights
𝑤01 = 0.5, 𝑤02 = 0.5
Bone 1: T1 Bone 2: T2

p0
“Skin”  Transform by T’1 and T’2
After rotations yields 𝑝01
′
, 𝑝02
′

p’01 p’02
Computing Vertex Positions
Rest (“bind”) pose
 Vertex 𝑝0 has weights
𝑤01 = 0.5, 𝑤02 = 0.5
Bone 1: T1 Bone 2: T2

p0
“Skin”  Transform by T’1 and T’2
After rotations yields 𝑝01
′
, 𝑝02
′

 The new position is

𝑝0′ = 0.5 ∗ 𝑝01
′ ′
+ 0.5 ∗ 𝑝02

p’01 p’0 p’02

Computing Vertex Positions
Rest (“bind”) pose
 Vertex 𝑝0 has weights
𝑤01 = 0.5, 𝑤02 = 0.5
Bone 1: T1 Bone 2: T2

p0
“Skin”  Transform by T’1 and T’2
After rotations yields 𝑝01
′
, 𝑝02
′

 The new position is

𝑝0′ = 0.5 ∗ 𝑝01
′ ′
+ 0.5 ∗ 𝑝02

p’01 p’0 p’02

SSD is Not Perfect
q0

p0

After rotations

Images from Pose Space Deformation: A Unified Approach to Shape Interpolation

and Skeleton-Driven Deformation, J. P. Lewis, Matt Cordner, Nickson Fong
Figuring out the weights
 Usual approach: Paint them on the skin.

(a) (b) (c)

Images from Shade 3D: Using Weight Painting
Examples

https://youtu.be/Tl4qTgwQwYw
Super Cool: Automatic Rigging
 When you just have some reference skeleton
animation (perhaps from motion capture)
and a skin mesh, figure out the bone
transformations and vertex weights!
 Ilya Baran, Jovan Popovic: Automatic
Rigging and Animation of 3D Characters,
SIGGRAPH 2007

Image from Ilya Baran, Jovan Popovic: Automatic Rigging

and Animation of 3D Characters, SIGGRAPH 2007
First Fully Automatic Rigging Algorithm

Input Output
3D Character
Rigged Character

Pinocchio
Generic Skeleton

Image from Ilya Baran, Jovan Popovic: Automatic Rigging and Animation of 3D Characters,
SIGGRAPH 2007
https://youtu.be/EklzamltEgM