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Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the can-you-take-a-punch dept.

Kerhop writes "Discovery Channel has an article about a new form of virtual actors in movies. In particular "Endorphin's virtual actors learn how to move and react independently, unlike most computerized characters now that depend on fixed databases containing animated clips". MSNBC also is featuring a news video (no direct link is available, stream must to be added to playlist). The featured software Endorphin is created by Natural Motion."

3 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Ain't this a bit OLD? by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dated: June 26, 2003
    and from the article "...will make their debut next year in the film "Troy,"..."

    Frist psot?

    --
    ^_^
  2. Article from 2003?!?! by ceenvee703 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I started reading the Discovery Channel article and saw they'd make their debut "next year in the film 'Troy.'" And I thought, hey, they just made a movie about Troy, they're going to make another one? Then I saw the June 26, 2003 date of the article. Slow news day I guess.

    --
    "This? I can make a hat, I can make a brooch, I can make a pterodactyl..."
  3. Endorphin is about the third package for this by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative
    Softimage has what used to be Motion Factory. There are others.

    There are two main approaches to this - the "animation splicing" systems, where canned bits of motion are spliced together by a program, and the "behavior" systems, where control programs are trying to optimize some goal. The first major appearance of a good "splicing" system was the baby 'zillas in Godzilla 2000. That's what most feature films are using today.

    Kinematic motion generation has been around for years, and that's what you see in games. It doesn't look real, but it works well enough for gameplay. The physics isn't realistic. That's why, from across the room, EA Football looks different from NFL football. Those jerky motions really pop out at you, especially when they're alternated with nice motion-captured moves.

    Endorphin isn't as automated as it looks; much manual tweaking of the motion is necessary. Motion Factory has more automation, but it's kinematic. Automatic physically-realistic animation is hard, because you have to solve the robotic control problem. The animation community may yet do this. But they're not there yet.

    (I've done some work on this.)