Patent ID: 8400455

Claim:
A method for use in computer animation, comprising: establishing an influence primitive having a plurality of control points; associating the influence primitive with a skeleton forming part of a model, the model having a plurality of model points; saving a fractional arc-length of a bind point along the influence primitive as a bind parameter; for each of the plurality of model points on the model not part of the skeleton, determining, by a processor based apparatus, an offset primitive that passes through the model point; wherein the offset primitive has control points that are offset from the control points of the influence primitive in accordance with a predetermined algorithm; and deforming the skeleton of the model, which deforms the influence primitive to establish a deformed influence primitive, and which deforms the plurality of model points on the skeleton to establish corresponding deformed model points; and for each of the plurality of model points associated with a deformed portion of the skeleton and not on the skeleton, determining a deformed offset primitive using the deformed influence primitive, comprising: calculating an offset vector v between the influence primitive and the offset primitive; and identifying control points of the deformed offset primitive as separated from a corresponding one of control points of the deformed influence primitive by the calculated offset vector v.