How to build a human: practical physics-based character animation

Abstract

We present state-of-the-art character animation techniques for generating realistic anatomical motion of muscles, fat, and skin. Physics-based character animation uses computational resources in lieu of exhaustive artist effort to produce physically realistic images and animations. This principle has already seen widespread adoption in rendering, fluids, and cloth simulation. We believe that the savings in manpower and improved realism of results provided by a physics- and anatomy-based approach to characters cannot be matched by other techniques. Over the past year we have developed a physics-based character toolkit at Ziva Dynamics and used it to create a photo-realistic human character named Adrienne. We give an overview of the workflow used to create Adrienne, from modeling of anatomical bodies to their simulation via the Finite Element Method. We also discuss practical considerations necessary for effective physics-based character animation.