Patent Document ID: 10061871
Application ID: 14809458
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of facilitating life-like, natural and realistic computer character animation for displaying on a display device by generating weights on a 3D mesh model representing a computer animation character to be manipulated by an artist in the form of a polygonal mesh for linear blend skinning (LBS) transformations based on an input mesh and a skeleton, the method comprising: receiving 3D mesh information and skeleton information related to the model of the computer animation character; generating a plurality of representative structure preserving deformation skeleton exemplars sampled from a manipulation space of all possible skeleton deformations; generating optimized as rigid as possible (ARAP) transformations utilizing said plurality of representative structure preserving deformation exemplars; generating optimized linear blend skinning weights for deformities in accordance with said optimized ARAP transformations; transforming and skinning the 3D mesh model, in accordance with manipulations to the computer animation character by the artist, by blending bone transformations utilizing said optimized linear blend skinning weights which define an influence the bones have on mesh vertices such that resulting 3D mesh deformities are as rigid as possible; wherein said optimized linear blend skinning weights optimally deform a surface of said 3D mesh in conformance with the ARAP transformations when said skeleton is manipulated by an artist; wherein said ARAP energy to be minimized defines how much the transformations of the neighborhood of every vertex differ from rotations and depends on an ARAP transformation function ƒ, which depends on LBS weights; and applying said LBS weights to a transformation of the skeleton of the computer animation character, including the rotation and translation of the various bones, where the LBS weights are optimized to obtain a deformation ƒ, which minimizes ARAP energy and in which the computer animation character, as manipulated by the artist and displayed on the display device, deforms utilizing the LBS weights in an as rigid as possible manner thereby providing life like, realistic and natural movement thereof on the display device.