Patent ID: 8730246

Claim:
A method of rendering frames of an animation sequence using a plurality of motion clips included in a motion space, wherein each of the plurality of motion clips depicts a character performing a sequence of motion, the method comprising: generating a goal space, wherein the goal space includes, for at least one starting frame, a plurality of possible future locations of the character computed from a plurality of beginning blending values and the at least one starting frame; while rendering a frame of the animation sequence based on a first blending value at the at least one starting frame, determining that a next frame to be rendered corresponds to the least one starting frame; and generating a second blending value by: determining, from the goal space, a plurality of possible future locations of the character in a steer space that includes at least two of the possible future locations of the character in the goal space, wherein the plurality of possible future locations of the character in the steer space are selected based upon which beginning blending values in the plurality of beginning blending values are closest to the first blending value, transforming the plurality of possible future locations of the character in the steer space to a local coordinate space of a graphics scene, and determining, from the plurality of possible future locations of the character in the steer space and a goal location included in the graphics scene, the second blending value to use in rendering subsequent frames of the animation sequence to steer the character towards the goal location, wherein a path traversed by the character towards the goal location is different than one or more points defining a path traversed by the goal location.