Combined Direct and Inverse Kinematic Control for Articulated Figure Motion Editing

Abstract A new approach for the animation of articulated figures is presented. We propose a system of articulated motion design which offers a full combination of both direct and inverse kinematic control of the joint parameters. Such an approach allows an animator to specify interactively goal‐directed changes to existing sampled joint motions, resulting in a more general and expressive class of possible joint motions. The fundamental idea is to consider any desired‐joint space motion as a reference model inserted into the secondary task of an inverse kinematic control scheme. This approach profits from the use of half‐space Cartesian main tasks in conjunction with a parallel control of the articulated figure called the coach‐trainee metaphor. In addition, a transition function is introduced so as to guarantee the continuity of the control. The resulting combined kinematic control scheme leads to a new methodology of joint‐motion editing which is demonstrated through the improvement of a functional model of human walking.