Procedural Animation and Motion Analysis of Animals

本研究的背景包括程序动画技术。制作动画的常见工业方法包括耗时的关键帧，这需要多年的经验来掌握，以及动作捕捉，通常作为动画师或一次性动画的灵感，之后数据被丢弃。由于实际原因，动作捕捉很少用于动物。在研究中，程序性人体动画得到了广泛的研究。解决方案包括基于示例的、基于仿真的和混合方法。程序化动物动画大多局限于基于模拟的模型，通常缺乏真实感和通用性。我关注的是基于实例的方法，由于动物数据稀缺，这些方法主要关注人类。许多动物都是四足动物，这意味着从生物力学上讲，它们的行为与人类不同，而鸟类，从技术上讲，是两足动物，行动方式又不同。我的目标是创造一个工具来合成动物的运动，推广到不同的动物，并在实时操作。这将需要通过动作捕捉来分析动物的动作，并研究创建它的模型。例如，该工具可以捕捉人类扮演动物的动作，并使用目标动物动作的数据库，将人类的动作以动物的风格转移到动物身上。另一个目标是将现有的动物动作重新定位到另一个动物身上，保持目标风格。动作重定向以前也有过研究，但主要集中在动作上，而不是风格上，或者需要人工输入来确保风格的转移。现实世界的主要应用是在电影和视频游戏等领域，在这些领域，表现力对于创造沉浸式体验很重要。关键的好处是改进了真实感、控制风格、开发时间和捕获数据的可重用性，特别是动物运动。我也希望能提高动物运动的知识，这可能在生物力学和机器人领域有应用。该项目由EPSRC DTP资助，该DTP与大学的核心研究战略领域-数字媒体和视觉技术保持一致。它将在巴斯大学图形和可视化研究领域的核心研究中心CAMERA内工作。CAMERA拥有超过35名研究人员，最先进的商业标准动作捕捉设施，以及一系列具有不同知识基础和丰富监督经验的熟练学者。CAMERA对理解和研究运动感兴趣，这是一个动物代表性不足的领域。考虑将人类动作捕捉方法应用于动物是一件有趣的事情。之前的一个CAMERA项目——“从双足到动物”（由Imaginarium Studios的KTP资助）——试图从人类的动作中制作动物动画，结果产生了有前途的算法，还有改进的空间。我的项目将从这个结束的地方开始，通过它，我们可能会开发出更好的动作捕捉方法。我将与CAMERA研究人员一起研究程序面部动画-采用相同的建模方法并考虑动物应用-以及CAMERA研究人员开发无标记方法来分析动物运动。数字媒体和视觉技术是由产业战略挑战基金支持的，有许多相关的InnovateUK呼吁（例如新兴和使能技术）和RCUK呼吁（例如目前£8000万的AHRC/EPSRC创意集群）。CAMERA密切参与了ISCF在这一领域的战略制定，该项目与新的潜在相关项目保持一致。已经有几家对动物动画感兴趣的公司接洽了CAMERA，通过更成熟的方法来实现这一目标，我们为新的资金提供了可能性。阿德曼动画，铸造厂和Imaginarium是数字媒体和视觉技术的合作伙伴，并对项目主题感兴趣。因此，研究结果可能催生新的项目和合作。

The context of the proposed research comprises procedural animation techniques. Common industrial methods of creating animation include time-consuming keyframing, which requires years of experience to master, and motion capture, often as inspiration for the animator or for one-off animations, after which the data is thrown away. Motion capture is rarely used on animals for practical reasons. In research, procedural human animation has been studied extensively. Solutions include example-based, simulation-based, and hybrid methods. Procedural animal animation has mostly been confined to simulation-based models, which usually lack realism and generalisability. I am concerned with example-based methods, which have mostly focused on humans, due to animal data scarcity. Many animals are quadrupeds, which means biomechanically, they behave differently to humans, and birds, which are technically bipeds, move differently again. My aim is to create a tool to synthesise animal motion, generalise to different animals, and operate in real-time. This will require analysis of animal motion through motion capture, and research of models to create it. For example, the tool could take motion capture of a human acting as an animal, and, using a database of the target animal's motions, transfer the human motion to the animal in the animal's style. Another goal would be retargeting existing animal motion to another animal, keeping the target style. Motion retargeting has been researched before, but centres chiefly on the motion, not the style, or requires human input to ensure style transfer.The main real-world application is in areas such as films and video games, where expressiveness is important for creating an immersive experience. The key benefits would be improvements to realism, control over style, development time, and reusability of captured data, particularly with animal motion. I also expect to advance knowledge of animal motion, which could have applications in the biomechanics and robotics fields.The project is funded through an EPSRC DTP, which is aligned to a core University research strategy area - Digital Media and Visual Technologies. It will work within CAMERA, a research centre at the heart of the Graphics and Visualisation research area at the University of Bath. CAMERA has over 35 researchers, state-of-the-art commercial-standard motion capture facilities, and a range of skilled academics with diverse knowledge-bases and extensive supervisory experience. CAMERA is interested in understanding and studying motion, an area where animals are under-represented. It is interesting to consider application of human motion capture methods to animals. A previous CAMERA project - Biped to Animal (funded by a KTP with The Imaginarium Studios) - looked to animate animals from human motion, resulting in promising algorithms with scope for improvement. My project will start where this ended, and through it, we may develop better motion capture methods. I will work alongside CAMERA researchers studying procedural facial animation - taking the same modelling approaches and considering animal applications - and CAMERA researchers developing markerless approaches to analyse animal motion.Digital Media and Visual Technology is supported by Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund - with numerous relevant InnovateUK calls (e.g. Emerging and Enabling Technologies), and RCUK calls (e.g. current £80 million AHRC/EPSRC Creative Clusters). CAMERA is closely involved in ISCF strategy development in this area, and the project is aligned with new potential related projects. CAMERA has been approached by several companies interested in animal animation, and with a more mature approach to achieve this we open the possibility for new funding. Aardman Animations, The Foundry and The Imaginarium are partners in Digital Media and Visual Technologies and are interested in the project topic. The results could therefore spawn new projects and collaborations.