Development of Easy-To-Use Authoring System forNoh (Japanese Traditional) Dance Animation
Masaki Oshita

Reiko Yamanaka Masami Iwatsuki Yukiko Nakatsuka Takeshi Seki

Kyushu Institute of Technology
Fukuoka, Japane-mail: oshita@ces.kyutech.ac.jp

Hosei University
Tokyo, Japane-mail: {yamanaka@, iwatsuki@, yukiko.nakatsuka.58@,
takeshi.seki.67@adm.}hosei.ac.jp

Kanze Sakon, Kanzeryu Shimai Katatsuke, Hinoki Shoten, 2002.

Figure 1. Example of Noh dance notation (Katatsuke). Lyrics and motion
units for the dance are written down. The large black letters describe thelyrics and the small red letters on the right describe the corresponding
motion units (Shosa).

Abstract—Noh is a genre of Japanese traditional theater, akind of musical drama. Similar to other dance forms, Nohdance (shimai) can also be divided into small, discrete units ofmotion (shosa). Therefore, if we have a set of motion clips of
motion units (shosa), we can synthesize Noh dance animationby composing them in a sequence based on the Noh dance
notation (katatsuke). However, it is difficult for researchers,
learners, and teachers of Noh dance to utilize existing
animation systems to create such animations of Noh dance.
The purpose of this research is to develop an easy-to-use
authoring system for Noh dance animation. In this paper, we
introduce the design, implementation and evaluation of oursystem. To solve the problems of existing animation systems,
we employ our smart motion synthesis technique to compose
motion units automatically. We classify motion units as either
pattern or locomotion units. Pattern units are specific forms of
motion and can be represented as shot motion clips, whereas
locomotion ones denote movement towards a specific position
or direction and must be generated on the fly. To deal withlocomotion-type motion units, we implemented a module togenerate walking motion based on a given path. We createdseveral Noh dance animations using this system, which wasevaluated through a series of experiments.
Keywords – animation system, traditional dance, motion
synthesis.

Figure 2. Screenshot of our easy-to-use authoring system for Noh dance
animation. A user of this system can synthesize Noh dance animation bycomposing motion clips of motion units (shosa) according to the Noh dance
notation (katatsuke).

I.

INTRODUCTION

Noh is a genre of Japanese traditional theater, a kind ofmusical drama, which has been performed for over 600 years.
Similar to other dance forms, Noh dance (shimai) can also
be divided into small, discrete units of motion (shosa). The
continuous motions performed on stage are written downusing a traditional notation called katatsuke (Figure 1). A
main performer called shite dances accompanied by singing
or instrumental music by aligning consecutive motion units
according to the Noh dance notation (katatsuke). In theory, if
we have a set of motion clips of motion units (shosa), we cansynthesize Noh dance animation by composing them insequence based on the Noh dance notation (katatsuke).
However, it is difficult for researchers and learners of Nohdance to imagine what the Noh dance looks like based on thenotation (katatsuke), which gives only a series of names of
motion units. It would thus be most beneficial if they could
visualize the Noh dance notation as an animation by using an
animation system.
However, it is difficult for researchers, learners, andteachers of Noh dance to utilize existing animation systems(e.g., Motion Builder, Maya, Softimage, Max, etc.) to create
animations of Noh dance. To synthesis a continuous andnatural-looking motion by composing motion units, users ofexisting animation systems are required to edit many
parameters, such as which parts of the original motion clips

must be used, how each motion clip should be aligned withthe previous one, and how the transitions between sequential
motion clips should be generated. To utilize existing
animation systems, the user is required to have extensive
knowledge of motion editing. Moreover, even for a user who
has such knowledge, it takes a long time to edit thenumerous parameters to obtain a satisfactory animation.
The purpose of this research is to develop an easy-to-use
authoring system for Noh dance animation (Figure 2). The
system should be able to synthesize a Noh dance animation
based on the notation (katatsuke) by composing motion units
prepared in advance. The system should also be usable byusers with little knowledge of motion editing.
In this paper, we introduce the design, implementation,and evaluation of our system. To solve the problems ofexisting animation systems, we employ our smart motion
synthesis technique [1] to compose motion units
automatically. We classify Noh motion units as either patternor locomotion units. Pattern units are specific forms of
motion and can be represented as shot motion clips, whereas
locomotion ones denote movement towards a specificposition or direction and must be generated on the fly. To
deal with locomotion-type motion units, we implemented a
module to generate walking motion based on a given path.
We created several Noh dance animations using our system,
which was evaluated through a series of experiments.
The ultimate goal of our research is to identify how
professional performers move their bodies especially during
the intervals between motion units, the dynamics of which is
not clearly documented, but passed from teachers toapprentices tacitly during their training. By analyzing thedifferences between the synthesized motion and the motion
captured from a professional performer, we expect to grasp
their way of moving. Our findings should assist further
development of the motion synthesis technique to realize
natural connecting motions. We also expect that our results
can be extended to other kinds of dance forms and even nondance human motions too. We believe that the proposedsystem will be a first step toward this goal.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
reviews related work in the literature. Section III describes
the form of Noh dance and the requirements for our system,
while Section IV explains the implementation of the system.
Section V presents some experimental results and anevaluation thereof. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper.
II.

RELATED WORK

A. Dance Animation Systems
There are a few animation systems that are specialized
for creating dance animations. Choensawat et al. [2]developed a Noh animation system based on Labanotation[3][4], which is a well-known method for describing the
movements of each body part during dance. However, since
Labanotation is designed for European modern dance andcan represent only roughly the moving directions of bodies,
it is not suitable for describing the movements of Noh dance
motions. Consequently, Choensawat et al. [2] had to use
specialized templates to convert Labanotation symbols to

Noh-like movements and change the templates dynamicallydepending on the user-specified motion unit. Because
Labanotation describes the movements of each body part
individually, it is difficult for users to describe the motionsof Noh motion units using Labanotation. Moreover, when
Labanotation is used, the motion of the character is generated
by composing the motions of individual body parts that are
generated based on the Labanotation notation and prepared
keyframes. It is therefore difficult to realize natural-looking
motions of the character by utilizing motion capture data.
With respect to animation systems for other types ofdance, Soga et al. developed animation systems for ballet [5]and contemporary dance [6]. Their systems generate
animation based on a sequence of motion units specified by
the user or determined automatically by an algorithm.
However, their systems simply play back motion capture
clips and realizing natural-looking transitions between
sequential motions is not considered in their study. Moreover,control of the execution timing of motions and the position
orientation and path of the motions are not considered. Since
these components are important for creating Noh dance
animation, our system includes these components.
Various commercial/non-commercial systems for
authoring dance animation are available for use. There aresystems for editing dance notation based on Labanotationand for converting it to an animation [3]. DanceForms(formally Life Forms Dance) [7] allows the user tochoreograph a dance with multiple characters by using
keyframes or motion-captured motion clips. This software is
aimed at professional dancers and choreographers who haveadequate knowledge of dance choreography and usage ofthis software. Miku Miku Dance [8] is a popular system forcreating dance animations that are widely viewed on theInternet (YouTube, NicoVideo, etc.) in Japan. Althoughmany resources (character models, background models, etc.)
for this software are available on the Internet, it is a
keyframe-based animation system, and thus creating dance
motions is not easy; both extensive knowledge and a great
deal of time are required.
Existing animation systems for animations in generalsuch as Motion Builder, Maya, Softimage, and Max can beused for creating dance animations. However, as explainedin Section I, in order to synthesis continuous and naturallooking motion by composing motion units using thesesystems, the user is required to edit numerous parameters.
This too requires extensive knowledge and much time.
B. Dance Animation Generation
Various studies have proposed systems for generating
dance animation. Shiratori et al. [9] generated dance
animation automatically based on the given music bycomposing short motion clips. They considered the rhythm
and intensity of the motion and music to find matchingmotion clips for each segment of music. Since they use
simple interpolation between sequential motion clips, thetransitions between these may become unnatural. Zhang et al.
[10] proposed a similar system that solves the transition
problem by using a network structure of motion sequences.
These methods are suitable for certain improvised dances,Figure 3. Pictures of Noh (left and center) and shimai (right) performances.

but not for Noh dance, which is expected to follow specificdance notations.
C. Noh Dance Notation
Although the concept of motion units (shosa) stems from
wisdom that has been handed down in Noh society over 600
years, it was Yokomichi [11] who examined all the units andclassified them fully for the sake of scientific analysis of Nohperformances. Our research relies to a great extent on his
definition and classification of motion units. Brazell andBethe [12][13][14] absorbed Yokomichi’s theory and gave afull account of Noh dance with detailed explanation of thebasic motion units. However, researchers of Noh theater are
more interested in reading age old records than analyzing
current performances. With the recent widespread
availability of motion capture equipment, attempts have been
made to record and archive the motion of traditional
performances [15]. To the best of our knowledge, there has
been no research on the motion of Noh performances andmotion synthesis from motion units.
III.

SYSTEM DESIGNIn this section, we first describe Noh dance, which oursystem aims to animate. We then explain the requiredfeatures for our system.
A. Noh Dance and its Notation
Noh is a genre of Japanese traditional theater, a kind ofmusical drama that has been performed for over 600 years[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The main stage for Noh issquare (5.9 m by 5.9 m) and connected with the backstage by
a long bridge-like extension called hashigakari. Shite, themain performer, dances on the square stage as shown in
Figure 3. There are musicians and chorus members at theback and on the left of the stage, respectively. Usually there
are additional performers (called waki and tsure) as well. A
whole Noh play is choreographed and performed in dancelike movements, but we can still differentiate the dancing
parts from non-dancing parts where the chants and mimic
movements are accentuated. These dancing parts are often
extracted from a whole play and performed independently.
This is called shimai, vocal dance. The vocal dance is usually
performed by the main performer, wearing montsuki (afamily-crest-adorned Kimono) and hakama (Japanese-style
trousers) as shown in Figures 2 and 3 (on the right).
Although exquisite costumes and masks are some of thecharacteristic features of Noh performances, the vocal dance
does not include these, nor instrumental music; there is only
the accompaniment of the chorus. In this paper, we focus on
the vocal dance for the following reasons. First, without theelaborate costumes, each motion can be clearly observed.
Furthermore, the first dances learned are vocal dances, wherea novice performer begins to master the repertoire, working
from the simplest dance passages to longer, more difficult
ones [12].
Noh dance can be divided into small, discrete units ofmotion (shosa), which are used by Noh performers to notate
their performances. Figure 1 shows an example of katatsuke,
the Noh dance notation. The large black letters describe thelyrics while the small red letters on the right describe thecorresponding motion units. Motion units are placed linearly,
and when necessary, information about position ororientation on the stage is added.
In this paper, we classify the motion units broadly into
two groups, pattern and locomotion units. The former is adiscrete unit of motion that does not include positional
information, whereas the latter is a motion that indicates
movement on a large scale to an absolute position on thestage or in a direction relative to the performer’s current
position. The stage is divided into nine parts, each of which
has its own name (Figure 4), and the position on the stage is
specified using these names. Both pattern and locomotion
units can last for a few seconds or up to 20 s. Although it is
not a common concept to classify motion units as either
pattern or locomotion, it is our insight that they should betreated differently in terms of motion synthesis, because themotion of the pattern is always the same and can be
represented as a motion clip, whereas the motion of thelocomotion varies depending on the position and orientationof the performer and must be generated on the fly.
For example, the dance from Yuya (Figure 1), which isabout 3 min in length, consists of a sequence of the following
motion units.
1. Tatsu (stand up)
2. Shō e de (go forward)
3. Shashikomi hiraki (forward point and open)
4. Sayū (small zigzag)
5. Uchikomi (scooping point)
6. Ōgihiroge (open the fan)
7. Ageōgi hiraki (raised fan and open)
8. Ōzayu hidaribyōshi (large zigzag with a single left
stamp)

Waki pillar

Front

Sumi pillar

Wakizamae

ShōsakiSumi

Jiutaimae

Shōnaka

WakishōFuezamae

DaishōmaeJōza

Fue pillar

Shite

Shite pillar

Figure 4. Noh stage, which is divided into nine regions.

9.

Shōsaki e uchikomi hiraki (scooping point toward
Shōsaki)
10. Sashimawashi hiraki (sweeping point and open)
11. Migi e mawari (circle right)
12. Jōza yori shō e sahi (backing point from Jōza tofront)
13. Sumi e yuki (go to Sumi)
14. Ōgikazashi (extend fan)
15. Hidari e mawari (circle left)
16. Daishōmae sayū (small zigzag in Daishomae)
17. Uchikomi shitaitome (closure scoop)
The English translation of each unit is taken from [14]. The
words with a single underline indicate places on the stage,
whereas those with a double underline indicate the direction
from the performer’s viewpoint. Motion units with thesewords are usually locomotion-type motion units. Figure 5
shows the motion path of the dance described in Figure 1.
Although more than 300 motion units of dance
movements or of a more dramatic mimetic nature are used in
the complete Noh repertoire, the basic vocabulary of a Nohdance is very small; most vocal dances consist of a total of
about 80 units.
B. Required Features
Assuming that motion clips of the motion units areprovided, the system should be able to synthesize a Nohdance animation based on the Noh dance notation(katatsuke) by composing these. We expect users of oursystem to choose pattern-type motion units from a list of
motion units and to place these at the corresponding time on
the timeline. For locomotion-type motion units, the userneeds to specify the target position or the path of thelocomotion. These operations should be simple enough evenfor users with no previous experience of existing animation
systems. The system is then expected to generate theresulting animation without specification of any additionalparameters for motion synthesis.
To realize this, the system should provide the following
functionality.
1. Automatic motion alignment to determine theposition and orientation of the subsequent motion
based on the previous motion. In addition, thesystem should allow the user to adjust theorientation of the subsequent motion when

Kanze Sakon, Kanzeryu Shimai Nyumon Katatsuke , Hinoki Shoten, 2003.

Figure 5. Example of the motion path of a dance from the Noh play
“Yuya” described in Figure 1.

necessary. Although in Noh dances each motion
normally starts facing the front of the stage, this is
not always the case, and therefore, the user
sometimes needs to adjust the direction of eachmotion manually.
2. Automatic motion transition to determine
appropriate blending methods and timings for thetransition between sequential motions.
3. Locomotion editing and generation so that a user
can specify the target position or the path oflocomotion to create locomotion-type motion units.
Although existing animation systems allow a user torealize motion alignment and transition manually, the user
must edit numerous parameters. Our system is expected totake care of this editing automatically. To create a walking
motion in existing animation systems, the user must copy
and deform the motion of one cycle of walking along thepath of locomotion manually. This is a difficult and timeconsuming task. Although some animation systems provide a
locomotion editing and generation module, it is still difficult
for novices to use.
IV.

IMPLEMENTATIONIn this section, we describe our developed animation
system for Noh dance. The system satisfies the requirements
outlined in the previous section.
A. System Overview
Screen shots of our system are shown in Figures 2 and 6.
The lower area of the screen represents the timeline of theanimation where users can arrange motion units. The upperarea of the screen represents the scene view. Users can see
the synthesized animation and edit various parameters suchas initial position and direction, direction of each motion,and locomotion path. The menu and playback control panels
are also displayed on the screen. At this point our system islimited to editing the motion of a single character, because
Noh dance is mostly performed by a single actor. This
simplification makes the user interface easy to use.

Figure 7. User interface for editing initial position and orientation of thecharacter.

Figure 6. Screenshot of our animation system during locomotion editing.

There are three lines on the timeline on which the user
can arrange motion units, while the line at the bottom
represents the continuous output motion that is synthesizedfrom the motion units on the lines above. The user can selecta motion unit and put it as a motion track on the timeline. By
dragging the motion track, its execution timing can be edited.
Motion tracks can overlap each other on the timeline. By
dragging the left or right edge of the motion track, themotion duration (motion speed) can be edited as well. By
manipulating the scroll bar at the top of the timeline, the time
range of the animation to be displayed on the timeline can bevaried. These are all standard interface functions that areused in many authoring systems for music, movies, andanimation. Even for novices who have no experience withexisting systems, the concept of this user interface is simple
enough to understand quickly.
The initial position and orientation of the character isedited in the scene view. Since the Noh stage is horizontal,
only the horizontal position and direction (three parameters)
need be edited. The user can edit these using the handles inthe scene view as shown in Figure 7. By dragging the blue or
red bars, the front-back or left-right position is controlled. By
dragging the center of the rectangle, the front-back and leftright positions are controlled simultaneously. By dragging
the green arc, the horizontal orientation is controlled. This
matches the standard interface used in existing animation
systems. Users of our system can easily use this interface,especially since the number of handles is relatively small as
our control is limited to horizontal position and direction.
The male character model in montsuki and hakama, thebackground models (a typical Noh stage), and all motion
clips for pattern-type motion units are prepared in advanceand integrated into our system. Users need not be concernedwith preparing these. Although it is possible to change suchdata if necessary, creating the data is difficult for ordinary
users, and thus they are not expected to do it themselves.
B. Motion Capture Data
We captured motion data of Noh motions of pattern-type
units using a VICON motion capture device with the help ofa professional Noh performer, Masaki Umano. Acquired
motion data were edited and retargeted to the charactermodel used by our system in advance. Finally each motion
unit was stored in a BVH (Biovision Hierarchical Data) file.
We captured a total of 83 motions.
In an actual Noh dance, the same motion unit can be
performed in a number of ways depending on the storyline ofthe play and type of character (male, female, god, demon,etc.). It is thus, difficult to determine which variation of
motion should be used from the Noh dance notation.
Therefore, at this point, we have captured the standard
motion for each motion unit.
Since we do not capture the motion of the fingers of theperformer, the finger joints are set separately in a fixed
posture. The relative position and orientation between theright hand and the fan held by the character are also specified.
At this point, these cannot be changed during animation,although the performer can open and close the fan andsometimes moves it between the right and left hands during
the performance.
C. Automatic Motion Alignment
By using our method [1], each motion is automaticallyaligned to the previous motion. The motion is placed so thatthe position of the supporting foot when the motion starts
matches the position of the same foot at the end of theprevious motion. The supporting foot is detected based on
the constraints between the foot and the ground and the
distance between the foot and the character’s center of mass.
The orientation of each motion is determined so that its
moving direction matches the moving direction of theprevious motion [1]. This method works well on motion
synthesis of general human motion. However, as explainedin Section III.B, in Noh dance animation, the user sometimes
needs to adjust the initial direction of each motion rather thankeeping the moving direction between the previous andsubsequent motions. Moreover, since a single motion unit
sometimes consists of movements in different directions, it isdifficult to determine the moving direction robustly. To
address these issues, our system allows the user to adjust thedirection of each motion manually after its initial direction
has been determined automatically.
When a motion track is selected on the timeline, the user
can adjust the initial direction of the selected motion in thescene view in the same way as editing the initial positionand orientation as explained in Section IV.A except that
only the green arc is shown and only the horizontal
orientation is adjustable.
D. Automatic Motion Transition
Smooth transition between sequential motions on thetimeline is also realized using our smart motion synthesis
method [1]. An appropriate blending method and timings areautomatically determined for each pair of sequential motions
based on changes in the constraints between the foot and theground during these motions. The key idea is that theblending method and timings are determined so that theconstraints between the foot and the ground are maintained
during motion blending. If we blend a motion while the footis constrained to the ground with another motion, it causes
foot sliding and the resulting motion becomes unnatural. For
transitions between sequential motions, three types of
blending methods are used depending on the constraints andtimings: motion transition, motion connection, and motion
adaptation. For details of these, refer to [1].
Our system is based on this smart motion synthesis
method. However, some improvement was required to makeit work with Noh dance motions. We improved the algorithm
for detecting the constraints between the foot and the ground
during motion. Since one of the characteristics of Noh dance
movements is that the performers do not lift up their feet andinstead slide them on the floor as they walk, the algorithm
could not determine the supporting foot based on the heightof the foot position. To address this, we tuned the conditions
for determining these constraints. The system determines thatthe foot is a supporting one when it is on the ground (heightof the foot position is less than 0.2 m) and the velocity isgreater than a threshold over a certain period of time (0.1 s).
We analyzed the captured motion data of Noh dance todetermine an appropriate velocity threshold (0.4 m/s).
Our system visualizes the constraints between the footand the ground on the motion tracks on the timeline asshown in Figures 2 and 6. The upper (blue) and lower(white) segments represent the constraints for the right andleft foot, respectively. Because the motion synthesis is done
automatically based on this information, the user need not be
concerned with this. The constraints are merely shown as
supplemental information.
The bottom line on the timeline represents thesynthesized motion. It shows what parts of the motion clips
are used and what blending methods are applied during
which time period. Because this is also automaticallydetermined by the system, the user does not have to worry
about this information either.
E. Locomotion Editing and Generation
Many studies have focused on locomotion generation incomputer animation [18][19]. A common way of generating
locomotion along a given path is to repeat and deform one
cycle of straightforward walking motion prepared in advance.
A motion blending technique can also be used to control the
speed, direction, and style of the walking motion cycles.

Our system employs the same approach. We captured an
example motion of straightforward waking in Noh dance andextracted one cycle of walking motion. Given a locomotion
path as curve p  t  (horizontal position and direction at timet ), the example walking motion is repeated and deformed
according to the path. First, the number of cycles N isdetermined based on the length of the given path L and thelength of one cycle of example walking motion Lexample .
N   L / Lexample  0.5

(1)where  x  denotes the maximum integer number smaller
than x . The example walking motion is then repeated anddeformed. Although existing methods use the locomotion
path as the trajectory of the pelvis of the character [18][19],this approach does not work well in our case. Because thewalking speed is usually relatively slow in Noh dance andthe style of walking is close to static walking rather than
dynamic walking, that is, the pelvis is moved above the footwhile the other foot is being moved forward and the pelvis
trajectory projected onto the floor draws a zigzag path. To
maintain this style of example walking motion, first thelocomotion path for the example straightforward walking
motion p example  t  is computed as a straight trajectory basedon the initial and terminal pelvis positions for the example
motion. The horizontal position and direction of the pelvis
q  t  is computed by mapping the displacement between thepelvis and path trajectories of the example motion qexample  t 
to the given path. This is computed as(2)
q  t   M  t  q example  w  t    p example  w  t    p  t  ,where w  t  is the time warping function to compute thecorresponding time on the example motion from the time on
the given path based on N ; M  t  is the transformation
matrix from the local coordinates defined by p example  w  t   to

the global coordinates defined by p  t  ; and  and 
denote the sum and difference between the horizontal
positions and directions, respectively. The posture on theexample motion is then translated and rotated based on q  t  .
In addition, by using inverse kinematics, the foot position isfixed while the foot is supporting to prevent the foot fromsliding.
In addition, when the difference between the initial
direction of the character and that of the locomotion path isgreater than a threshold (30 degrees), the character performs
a turning motion before starting to walk. In the same way,
when the difference between the terminal direction of thecharacter and that of the locomotion path is greater than thesame threshold, the character turns at the end of the walking
motion. We prepared several turning motions from which thesystem chooses the appropriate one based on the turning
angle. If the user wishes to make the character turn at somepoint during locomotion, the locomotion should be split into
several units.
The user can create an initial locomotion and place it on
the timeline as a motion unit. Thereafter, the user can edit theFigure 8. Example of the path in the synthesized motion.

Figure 9. Example of postures in the synthesized motion.

locomotion path, which is defined by a number of control
points. Each control point has a horizontal position andhorizontal direction, which can be controlled through thesame interface as the control of the initial position anddirection (Figures 6 and 7). However, the first control point
cannot be controlled through this interface as it is determinedfrom the terminal position and direction of the previous
motion. The user can also add and delete control points.
The locomotion path is represented as a quadratic curve
based on the control points using a Hermite function. The
directions of the initial and terminal points are computedfrom the position of the adjacent points since specified
directions are used to control the turning angle before andafter locomotion.

the path in Figure 8 basically matches that in Figure 5. Thismeans that our system reproduces the overall performance
written in the Noh dance notation well.
We compared the synthesized motion with the reference
motion, that is, the captured motion of the entire play of
Yuya given by the same professional Noh performer. Since
the synthesized motion roughly matches the reference
motion on the whole, we can say that our system reproduces
the Noh performance well.
However, we observed some artifacts during thetransitions between sequential motions. When the postures in
two successive motions are slightly different (e.g., the rightarm is raised in both postures, but at slightly different
heights), unnecessary movements for posture transition (e.g.,changing the height of the right arm) are generated, because
the motion synthesis method tries to reproduce the posturesof both motions as closely as possible even when a smoothtransition is preferable. On the other hand, when the posturesin the motions are very different, quick movements forposture transition are generated, because the transition time
period is given as a fixed parameter in the motion synthesis
method when there is sufficient time for transition. To
address these artifacts, certain extensions to the motion
synthesis method are required.
Other problems that we observed relate to locomotion
generation. Although our locomotion module basicallyworks well for generating non-Noh-style locomotion, we
found that it is not capable of generating natural-looking
Noh-style locomotion for the following reasons. First, in
Noh-style locomotion, turning and walking are not clearly
separated. The performer can turn while walking a few steps.
Although turns of this type are observed in non-Noh-style
locomotion, they are much clearer in Noh-style locomotion.
This type of turning motion cannot be generated by ourcurrent locomotion module. Secondly, the walking speed is
not constant in Noh-style locomotion. Initially it is slow,
becoming gradually faster. Sometimes it slows during a longwalking sequence when the performer changes direction. In
fact this type of speed control during walking is one of theimportant characteristics of a Noh performance. At this point,
our locomotion module generates walking motion at aconstant speed. This may be regarded as a small difference
but it is a significant problem according to professional Noh

F. Additional Functions
Our system also has functions to visualize thesynthesized motion. The path of the entire synthesized
motion can be drawn on the floor as shown in Figure 8. The
colors of the segments of the path represent thecorresponding motion segments on the timeline. The
synthesized motion can also be drawn as a series of stick
figures as shown in Figure 9. These functions are usefulwhen a user wishes to understand the movement of an entire
Noh dance.
The system can also render the synthesized animationand create a video file so that the created animation can beviewed on standard video players. The user can specify an
audio file of a vocal song and arrange the timings of the
motion units according to this based on the Noh dance
notation.
V.

EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION

The accompanying video is available on the author’s web
site: http://www.cg.ces.kyutech.ac.jp
To evaluate our system, we created several animations of
Noh dances including Yuya, Oimatsu, and so on. The
generated animation of Yuya is included in theaccompanying video as well as a demonstration of oursystem. As described in Figure 1 and Section III.A, Yuya is
about 3 min in length and consists of 14 pattern-type andthree locomotion-type motion units. Figures 8 and 9 show
the path and postures of the synthesized motion. Note that

performers and researchers. Improving our locomotion
module to realize these characteristics of Noh-style walking
is one of our important future works.
Another noticeable problem is the motion of the fan heldby the character. In the synthesized animations, the fanfrequently penetrates the character’s body. Moreover, the fansometimes faces the wrong way. Although the motion of thehand is captured in our motion data, this is not enough tocontrol the direction of the fan, because the performer canchange the manner and direction of holding the fan slightly
or sometimes greatly during the performance. To address thisissue, we need to capture the motion of the fan and reflect itin the motion clips. This is a future work, as well as realizing
manipulation of the fan (e.g., opening and closing) duringmotions as indicated in the Noh dance notation.
There are also some issues regarding the user interface.
For locomotion-type motion units, the user is expected togive a specific path of locomotion based on the Noh dance
notation. This requires knowledge of the Noh performance.
It would be helpful for users if we could develop a methodfor determining the locomotion path automatically based on
only the descriptions in the Noh dance notation.
In terms of time efficiency, in our experiments it took
only about 20 min to create the animation of Yuya for nonprofessional users. For comparison, we asked a semiprofessional animator to create a similar animation using an
existing animation system MotionBuilder [20] with the same
motion clips. It took him about 6 h to create the animationand moreover, the locomotion parts are not well reproduced
because of the difficulty of creating locomotion using
MotionBuilder. However, in terms of the quality of theanimation, the artifacts at transitions were not present in thiscase, because the animator edited the blending period andmethod manually. Considering that our system requires
much less time and knowledge, it is very efficient especiallyfor people who wish to visualize Noh dance notation easily.
VI.

CONCLUSION

In this research, we developed a practical easy-to-use
authoring system for creating Noh dance (shimai) animations
based on Noh dance notation (katatsuke) by using our smart
motion synthesis method [1]. We showed that our system
can be used to create Noh dance animations efficiently evenby users who do not have much knowledge of motion editingand experience with using animation systems.
Our future work includes conducting more practical user
tests to see if our system can assist researchers, learners, andteachers of Noh dance. As discussed above, improving
certain features of our system, including the motion synthesis
method, locomotion generation, handling the motion andmanipulation of the fan, and the method for automaticallydetermining the locomotion path, is also future work. As
explained in Section I, the ultimate goal of our research is to
identify how professional performers move their bodies byanalyzing the differences between the synthesized motion
and the motion captured from a professional performer. We
see our system as a promising tool for realizing this goal.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the Program for
Promoting Methodological Innovation in Humanities andSocial Sciences by Cross-Disciplinary Fusing as well as
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (24500238) from theJapan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). We
would like to thank Masaki Umano, a professional Noh
performer, for his invaluable help in acquiring motion
capture data and evaluating our prototype system.
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