Motion Skills for Simulated Humans

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Depicting human movement is an essential aspect of computer graphics and animation, with applications that include training simulations, computer games, and visual effects for film. As has been the case for other phenomena in computer graphics, such as the realistic rendering of skin or the realistic animation of fluids or hair, models that are developed from first principles and from a deep understanding of a given phenomenon offer the best prospects for achieving high-quality and generalizable results. The development of principled physics-based models has radically transformed the tool-sets used in computer graphics rendering and for the animation of passive phenomena. However, achieving similar progress for physics-based models of human motion remains hugely challenging. It requires solving many of the same control problems that are seemingly solved so effortlessly by the human body during our daily movements. Our research targets the considerable gap that remains between the current state of the art, which is largely based on motion clips and "rag doll" simulations, and the considerable motor skills of humans. Our focus is on motions such as walking, climbing, movement-related tasks in indoor and outdoor environments, and object grasping and manipulation. ******An overarching goal of our work is to develop a powerful and expressive "vocabulary" for the design and represention of motion skills. Specific objectives include (a) languages for authoring and integrating skills; (b) developmental strategies for the progressive learning of skills; (c) solving for motion plans as an inference problem; and (d) developing task-specific models of motion, e.g., developing specific models of how people move in specific work-place or task-related scenarios.******Our research helps lay the groundwork for a next generation of authoring systems for human motions, as required by training simulations, games, and film. In particular, the next generation of game consoles and visual effects for film is increasingly exposing the quality of human motion animation as a limiting factor in content production, as it falls further behind the relentless advance of rendering quality. While computer animation remains our primary target application, our work also offer insights and solutions for robotics, and, more particularly, for agile legged locomotion and dexterous robotic manipulation. Lastly, our work  offer insights and understanding for human motor control and biomechanics, given the ability to create highly capable synthetic models of many movement skills.**