Enhanced animation generation based on motion matching using local bone phases

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11995754-B2
Application number	US-202318158422-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 23, 2023
Priority date	Aug 2, 2021
Publication date	May 28, 2024
Grant date	May 28, 2024

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for enhanced animation generation based on using motion mapping with local bone phases. An example method includes accessing first animation control information generated for a first frame of an electronic game including local bone phases representing phase information associated with contacts of a plurality of rigid bodies of an in-game character with an in-game environment. Executing a local motion matching process for each of the plurality of local bone phases and generating a second pose of the character model based on the plurality of matched local poses for a second frame of the electronic game.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
as implemented by a computing system having at least one processor configured with specific computer-executable instructions,
accessing first animation control information generated by a for a first frame of an electronic game, the first animation control information including a first character pose of an in-game character and, at least, a plurality of local bone phases associated with an in-game character of the electronic game, individual local bone phases representing phase information associated with contacts of at least one rigid bodies of the in-game character with an in-game environment;
matching a local bone phase to local pose animation data for the corresponding local bone phase, wherein the local bone phase is encoded with local bone phase characteristics including position, orientation, velocity, and acceleration;
generating a second character pose of the character model based on at least the matched local pose animation data for a second frame of the electronic game; and
rendering the second frame including at least a portion of the second character pose of the character model within the in-game environment.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the local bone phase is represented by a two dimensional vector encoded with the local bone phase characteristics of the local bone phase.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , further comprising selecting a local pose from a plurality of eligible local poses corresponding to the local bone phase, by performing a nearest neighbor search using the two dimensional vector of the local bone phase as compared to two dimensional vectors of local poses in the animation data.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising identifying a motion type associated with the second pose of the in-game character.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 further comprising identifying a subset of the animation data corresponding to the motion type.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein generating the second pose of the character model comprises blending the plurality of local poses with a global pose to generate the second pose.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the first animation control information comprises information aggregated over a prior threshold number of frames.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the local bone phases further represent phase information associated with an external object configured to be interacted with by the in-game character.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising computing second animation control information for the second frame, wherein the second animation control information includes updated local bone phases, and wherein the updated local bone phases are determined via interpolation of the local bone phases included in the first animation control information.

10. A system comprising one or more processors and non-transitory computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
accessing first animation control information generated by a for a first frame of an electronic game, the first animation control information including a first character pose of an in-game character and, at least, a plurality of local bone phases associated with an in-game character of the electronic game, individual local bone phases representing phase information associated with contacts of at least one rigid bodies of the in-game character with an in-game environment;
matching the local bone phase to local pose animation data for the corresponding local bone phase, wherein the local bone phase is encoded with local bone phase characteristics including position, orientation, velocity, and acceleration; and
generating a second character pose of the character model based on at least the matched local pose animation data for a second frame of the electronic game;
rendering the second frame including at least a portion of the second character pose of the character model within the in-game environment.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the local bone phase is represented by a two dimensional vector encoded with the local bone phase characteristics of the local bone phase.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the computer-readable instructions further configure the one or more processors to select a local pose from a plurality of eligible local poses corresponding to the local bone phase by performing a nearest neighbor search using the two dimensional vector of the local bone phase as compared to two dimensional vectors of local poses in the animation data.

13. The system of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable instructions further configure the one or more processors to identify a motion type associated with the second pose of the in-game character.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the computer-readable instructions further configure the one or more processors to identify a subset of the animation data corresponding to the motion type.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable instructions further configure the one or more processors to blend the plurality of local poses with a global pose to generate the second pose when generating the second pose of the character model.

16. The system of claim 10 , wherein the first animation control information comprises information aggregated over a prior threshold number of frames.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the local bone phases further represent phase information associated with an external object configured to be interacted with by the in-game character.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein the computer-readable instructions further configure the one or more processors to compute second animation control information for the second frame, wherein the second animation control information includes updated local bone phases, and wherein the updated local bone phases are determined via interpolation of the local bone phases included in the first animation control information.

Assignees

• Electronic Arts Inc

Inventors

• Starke Wolfram Sebastian
• Zhao Yiwei
• Sardari Mohsen
• Chaput Harold Henry
• Aghdaie Navid

Classifications

• G06T13/40 Primary

  of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings · CPC title

• G06T7/215

  Motion-based segmentation · CPC title

• G06T7/223

  using block-matching · CPC title

• G06V40/103 Primary

  Static body considered as a whole, e.g. static pedestrian or occupant recognition · CPC title

• G06V40/23

  Recognition of whole body movements, e.g. for sport training · CPC title