Details and Implementation Issues of Animating Brachiation

Abstract

This paper presents a physically-based animation system for generating realistic motion of primate brachiation. One of the main aims of this system is to facilitate the process of generating brachiation sequences with appropriate automaticity and also provide the animator with adequate controllability. A hybrid system based on an integration of three control modules of different levels is developed. The low-level control module, namely forward dynamics interactive module can be employed to rapidly manipulate the torque values at specific joints of a simplied primate figure. Both the mid-level and high-level control modules are designated to automate the process of generating the basic global brachiation movements of the primate figure. The performance of the system is evaluated by measuring the animation results qualitatively and quantitatively. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the paradigm by generating animated sequences of realistic brachiating motion.