Project 2

Computer Animation, Spring 2002

Project 2: Keyframe Animation

This project is adapted from Assignment 5 in COS426 by Tom Funkhouser at Princeton.
The original ideas, code, and data came from Tony DeRose

Overview

In this assignment you will animate motions for an articulated figure. You will be given an articulated 3D model and sets of keyframes specifying the orientations of articulated joints at specific time steps. Your job is to interpolate the keyframes smoothly over a time interval and display the articulated figure in an OpenGL window so that it performs animated actions (e.g., walks, dances, etc.) in real-time. You also will provide an editor so a user can modify keyframes and create new ones.
The assignment will specified in two parts.

Project Part B:

Due Friday, March 15 at 11:59 PM.

What You Have to Do

Part B of the assignment is to enhance the animation of your keyframe viewer. Part B is worth 10 points. The following is a list of features that you may implement. The number in parentheses corresponds to how many points it is worth. Options in bold are mandatory.

Keyframe Viewer:

The keyframe viewer is a program that animates a character/object defined in a ray file by interpolating key frame values.

(1) Currently the viewer linearly interpolates keyframe values. Modify the KeyFile::setParameterValues function to interpolate keyframe parameters at each time step using piecewise cubic Catmull-Rom splines. Add a submenu that allows the user to specify the type of interpolation used.
(1) Let the user start an animation at an arbitrary frame and step through the animation by user-specified frame increments.
(3) Add the ability to blend motions from two different key files onto the same actor under user control. The user should be able to specify the relative start times of the two key files and edit a blending curve for any (and all) parameters common to the two files. Allow the user to write out a new key file with the composite motion.
(3) Let the user create a new motion path by interactively specifying a 2D bezier curve. (This specifies a path on the "floor.") Create keyframe values so that the character moves at constant speed along the curve in the direction of the curve tangent. Use super-sampling to reduce errors in the estimation of curve length.
(1) Add a make-movie command that writes each frame of the animation in .bmp format.
(1) Modify the motion path editor to allow the user to interactively specify a speed curve.
(1) Add the ability to animate camera position and orientation.
(2) Extend the path editor to 3D. You must allow the user to view and edit the 3D path in the animation window from a user specified perspective.
(1) Create a movie of the stick man walking and juggling.
(?) Impress us with something we hadn't considered... Point values for optional features must be pre-approved.

What to Submit

You should submit one archive (zip or tar file) containing:

the complete source code for parts a & b
a makefile
any .ray and .key files you created
images of your models
any movie you create
a writeup

The writeup should be a HTML document called project2.html which may include other documents or pictures. It should describe parts a and b of the project. It should be brief, describing what you have implemented, and how you created your models.