Finger motion estimation and synthesis for gesturing characters

In this paper, a novel methodology for estimating a virtual character's finger motion based on parameters provided by the character's wrist is presented. For the motion estimation process, firstly the motion sequences are classified into active and passive finger gesture phases with the active finger gestures classified according to different gesture types. Based on both classifications the system first searches for the gesture phase and then for the most appropriate gesture type. Having found the gesture type, or having determined that the input motion segment belongs to the passive phase, by using a metric, it retrieves the closest motion segment. Such a method can be beneficial in the finger motion estimation process, since both wrong estimations and the computational time of the searching process are reduced. Finally, in addition to the motion estimation process, an optimisation of the motion graphs methodology for searching optimal transitions between two consecutive motions is introduced.