JP3056535B2 - Animation creation support device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an animation creation support device. In recent years, animation has attracted attention not only for entertainment but also for business. Moving pictures can appeal to human vision much more than showing a single picture or text. For example, when introducing an application, animations are very effective for accurately grasping the functions and for business presentations. However, with current animation creation tools, the animation creator must ultimately make natural phenomena look like a flat surface or create data such as a human walking. Therefore, there is a need for a device that supports creating animations more easily.

[0002]

[Prior Art] Vide as an animation creation tool
o There are various things such as Works, Studio / 1, Director2.0. For example, in Video Works II, a unit that operates as one unit such as a graphic image or a character appearing in one animation is called a cast. In order to actually create an animation, the position and size of the cast on the screen and the logical operation of drawing are performed for each frame (referred to as a cell in this specification) corresponding to the actual film for each cast. (Reversal of the original data and drawing of the background color) must be defined.

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining the structure of a score. One rectangle in the figure is called a cell. The score is
It is composed of a plurality of cells arranged in a matrix. The horizontal arrangement of cells is called a channel, and the vertical arrangement is called a frame. One frame in the score corresponds to one screen (frame) on the projection film. One channel is assigned to one component on the screen. In the illustrated example, the first channel is assigned to a triangular part, the second channel is assigned to a circular part, and the fourth channel is assigned to a square part.

FIG. 12 shows a human walking motion. As shown in the figure, when attempting to perform an animation in which a human walks, it is necessary to register all of them as casts in consideration of the frame allocation for making the human walk. For this reason, the specification at the time of animation creation is not for one part called human,
Since the change is performed for a certain shape state, the specification when changing the animation is complicated, and the burden on the user increases.

FIG. 13 is a view for explaining an animation representing the approach of an object. As shown in the figure, when performing an animation in which a distant object approaches, the user must define the position and size of the figure with respect to the cell. You have to know the special technique to put it out, making animation very difficult.

FIG. 14 is a view for explaining an animation representing the movement of a landscape. As shown in the figure, when animating the scenery seen from the window of the car, the tree at the forefront moves fastest backward, and the mountain at the farthest distance hardly moves. The fact that the user understands this and makes each picture element look like on a plane relies heavily on experience and feeling.

[0007]

Therefore, when representing the movement of one object, all changes in the shape of that object must be registered as a cast, and the operation must be performed for each cast. Becomes complicated. In addition, the creation of animation relies heavily on experience and feeling, and it is difficult to create animation without special knowledge of moving images. The present invention has been made in view of this point, and has as its object to provide an animation creation support device that can more easily create an animation.

[0008]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.
It is a principle explanatory view of the invention of FIG. The animation creation support device according to the first aspect of the present invention includes an input device 1 and a cell management table for registering and holding a component, a position, a size, and a shape change command of a component with respect to a cell based on a command input by the input device 1. A cell management unit 2 that generates and updates cells, a parts library 4 that holds parts used in animation, and changes in registration, deletion, and shape change of parts with respect to the parts held in the parts library 4. such a component managing unit 3 that manages the component in order to perform, between the components Li
Link to calculate the position and size of parts and automatically
Part information calculation unit 7 for generating a cell in advance , and cell management unit 2
And a display structure 6 for displaying an animation drawn by the drawing mechanism 5 for performing actual drawing with reference to the cell management table held by the drawing mechanism 5. Figure 2 is an explanatory view of the principle of the invention of claim 2 of the present invention. The animation creation support device according to the second aspect of the present invention is the animation creation support device according to the first aspect, including an operation knowledge 8 for retaining knowledge of an operation, and the component information calculation unit 7 referring to the operation knowledge 8. , The position and size of the component, etc. are calculated, and the cell is automatically generated.

[0009]

The operation of the invention of claim 1 will be described. The parts library 4 stores parts (graphic parts). The component management unit 3 registers a component in the component library 4, deletes the component, or changes the shape of the component based on a command input from the input / output device 1.

The cell management section 2 has a plurality of cell management tables (not shown). One cell management table corresponds to one frame (screen). The cell management table has a plurality of rows, and each row has a number field, a component field, a position field, a size field, a shape field, and the like. One row of the cell management table corresponds to one cell.

In the number field, a number for specifying a cell is entered. In the parts field, information indicating parts such as a sphere, a tree, and a human is written. In the position field, information indicating the position of the component on the screen is written. Information indicating the size of the component on the screen is entered in the size field. For example, when the size is 1, the ball has a diameter of 5 on the screen.
Assuming that the sphere is represented by a circle of cm, when the size is 2, the sphere is represented by a circle having a diameter of 10 cm on the screen.

A shape change command is written in the shape field. The shape change command is init or scal
There are commands such as e and bomb. If the shape change command is init, the part having the size specified in the size field is displayed on the screen as it is.
Shape change command when the scale (1) are those components having a size specified by the size field to ₁ times n is displayed on the screen. When the shape change command is bomb, a picture when a component (for example, a balloon) ruptures is displayed on the screen.

The drawing mechanism 5 writes a picture to be displayed on the display 6 into, for example, an image memory (not shown) with reference to a cell management table existing in the cell management section 2. The picture written in the image memory is displayed on the screen of the display 6.

Here, the first frame, the second frame,...
Information about the component T ₁ to L ₁ row in the cell management table of M-th frame is assumed that it is already all configured. Under such conditions, the position and size of the part T
If you try to add a linked component T ₂ to _1, and inputs information indicating that for automatic generation of the cell by the link between the components from the input device 1, then, L ₂ in the first frame of the cell management table assignment for adding a line part T _2, set the component, the position, size, information such as the shape on the L ₂ rows.

When the above setting is completed, the component information calculation section 7 operates. The component information calculation unit 7 calculates the first frame, the second frame,
Th frame, ..., with reference to the information of the L ₂ rows in the information and the first frame of the cell management table of L ₁ row in the cell management table of M-th frame, the second frame,
... calculates the information to be written to the _second line L in the cell management table of M-th frame, and writes the calculated information to the L ₂ lines of the corresponding cell management table.

The operation of the invention of claim 2 will be described.
For example, assume a case of creating an animation representing the approach of the article T _1. When performing such an animation, information indicating that an animation is to be created using motion knowledge indicating approach is input from the input device 1, and then 1
Information about the article T ₁ in the L ₁ row in the cell management table of the frame (the screen representing the farthest article T ₁ )
(Position, size, etc.) is set, it sets the information (position, size, etc.) to articles T ₁ to L ₁ row in the cell management table of M-th frame (screen showing an article T ₁ which is closest).

When the above setting is completed, the component information calculation section 7 operates. The part information calculation unit 7 extracts the operation knowledge (arithmetic expression) representing the approach from the operation knowledge 8 and adds the position and size of the L1 row of the cell management table of the _first frame and the cell of the Mth frame to the extracted arithmetic expression. substituting the position and size of the L ₁ row of the management table, the second frame,
..., (M-1) to calculate the information to be written in L ₁ row in the cell management table frame, and writes the calculated information to the L ₁ line of the corresponding cell management table.

[0018]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Conventional problems are as follows: when expressing the movement of one part, it must be treated as a part for each change in the shape of the part; and when expressing the movement of an object due to perspective, etc. It depends heavily on the feeling, and animation creation consumes a great deal of time for the user and is difficult to create. Therefore: ・ A method of defining one part as an object having a procedure for shape change inside.・ A method of automatically creating cells with simple specifications based on link between parts and operation knowledge. think of. Hereinafter, these specific methods will be described.

The parts which become picture elements of the animation will be described below. (a) Size Each part has a size. The size is determined by the distance from which the object indicated by the picture element is viewed. The vertical and horizontal dimensions change at the same ratio, and the reference size is set to 1. (b) Position Indicates the position of the part on the screen. (c) Shape change Each part has a shape change command (highlight,
scale, move, etc.). A shape change corresponding to the shape change command is defined for each component, and can be created, updated, and registered by the user. FIG. 3 shows an example of a change in the shape of the balloon as a component. In the figure, init is initial shape indicates that (size specified size, shape intact) is, scale (1) has indicated that it should _1x n the shape of the specified size, scale (2 ) Indicates that the shape of the specified size should be multiplied by n ₂ , scale (3) indicates that the shape of the specified size should be multiplied by n ₃ , and bomb
Indicates that it should be in the shape it had when ruptured.

The generation of an animation by designating a shape change will be described. An animation using the above-described change in the shape of the part is created. The score at the top of FIG. 4 indicates the channel of the score that holds the operation of the balloon. Each cell contains the position (Position) and size (Siz
e), the shape (Shape) is entered, and the actual display screen is as shown in the figure. Setting the command representing the change in shape of the component with respect to each cell of the channel (scale, bomb, etc.), is as shown in the lower part of FIG.

As described above, since the shape can be designated regardless of the movement of the component itself, a complicated operation can be animated. Also, as shown in FIG. 4 , after determining the operation of the part itself, it is easy to update only the shape change. Animation creation that updates the definition of shape change, that is, animation creation while recognizing the entirety, can be performed. FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of a method of generating an animation by designating a shape change.

An automatic cell generation method using operation knowledge will be described. When animating parallel movement, free fall, approach, etc., the user simply specifies the initial position and size at which the operation starts and the last position and size at which the operation ends, and based on the operation knowledge, Cells can be generated automatically.

FIG. 6 shows an example of an animation representing the approach. FIGS. 6 (a) represents a front automatic generation of the cell. In the cell of, the operation start state of the rectangle in the figure (size, position, etc.)
Is set, and the last state in which the operation ends is set in the third cell. A cell at an intermediate stage is generated based on these pieces of information.

The number of cells for automatically generating Num (including the beginning), N is the size (N ₀ is the size of the initial position, N _Num
Is the size of the last position), the size N _n written in the n-th cell is N _n = N ₀ × (N _Num / N ₀ ) ^{n / Num} (1)

The positions to be written into the automatically generated cells are (N _Num / N ₀ ) ^{0 / Num} : (N _Num / N ₀ ) ^{1 / Num} : ...: (N _Num / N ₀ ) ^{n / Num} ... This is a point obtained by dividing the line segment connecting the first position and the last position in the ratio of (2).

For example, if the cell size is N ₀ = 1,
Is N ₃ = 8. In the cell which is the first cell, the rectangular size N
₁ is N ₁ = N ₀ × (N _Num / N ₀ ) ^{n / Num} = 1 × (8/1)
^1/3 = 2, and similarly in the second cell,
Size N2 becomes N ₂ = 4.

The position of the rectangle to be written into the automatically generated cell is represented by a line segment connecting the first position and the last position of the rectangle. (8/1) ^0/3 : (8/1) ^1/3 : (8 / 1) ^2/3 =
This is a point divided into a ratio of 1: 2: 4. FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an automatic cell generation method using operation knowledge. Operational knowledge includes
Equations (1) and (2) are stored.

An automatic cell generation method based on links between components will be described. Determine the initial position and size to start the operation for the newly added part, and link to the part for which the operation is set, referring to the cell of the part for which the operation is already set , Create a cell for the newly added part.

FIG. 8 illustrates a method of automatically generating cells by linking between components. 8 (a) is a diagram showing the operation of the tree when the viewpoint is moving. An animation is created by adding a new tree behind this. In the figure, the initial state of the newly added tree is shown. Linking this tree tree operation existing in the front is already determined, the state of the corresponding state, the state of the corresponding state is generated as shown in FIG. 8 (b) of the.

The initial coordinate values of the newly added component are X1 'and Y1', and the coordinate values written to the n-th cell for the component are Xn 'and Yn'. The size of the part in the initial state is N1 ', and the size written to the n-th cell for the part is N1'.
n '. The position Xn ′ is represented by the following expression: Xn ′ = X1 ′ + (Xn−X1) × N1 ′ / N1 (3), and the position Yn ′ is represented by: Yn ′ = Y1 ′ + (Yn−Y1) × N1 ′ / N1 (4), and the size Nn 'is represented by Nn' = N1 '× Nn / N1 (5).

For example, in FIG. 8 , Posi (100, 600), Size: 1 Posi (300, 600), Size: 1 Posi (500, 600), Size: 1 Posi (200, 400), Size: 0. 5 From the expressions (3) and (4), the position of X2 ′ = X1 ′ + (X2−X1) × N1 ′ / N2 ′ = 200 + (300−100) × 0.5 / 1 = 300 Y2 ′ = 400. According to the equation (5), the size N2 ′ is expressed as N2 ′ = N1 ′ × N2 / N1 = 0.5 × 1 × 1 = 0.5. Similarly, the position is X3 '= 400 Y3' = 400, and the size N3 'is N3' = 0.5. FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an automatic cell generation method based on links between components.

FIG. 10 is a functional block diagram of one embodiment of the animation creation support device of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is an input device, 2 is a cell management unit, 3 is a parts management unit,
Reference numeral 4 denotes a component library, 5 denotes a drawing mechanism, 6 denotes a display, 7 denotes a component information calculation unit, and 8 denotes operation knowledge. The animation creation support device of FIG. 10 is the same in hardware as a normal computer system. The software includes a cell management program corresponding to the cell management unit 2, a component management program corresponding to the component management unit 3, a drawing program corresponding to the drawing mechanism 5, a component information calculation program corresponding to the component information calculation unit 7, and the like. I do.

The illustrated animation creation support device simply or automatically generates cells for composing an animation. The animation creation support device includes an input device 1, a cell management unit 2, a component management unit 3,
, A component library 4, a drawing mechanism 5, a display 6, a component information calculation unit 7, and operation knowledge 8.

The input device 1 is for inputting to the device, and is, for example, a keyboard or a mouse.

The cell management unit 2 generates, deletes, and changes cells for composing an animation. In addition, the cell management unit 2 performs one frame (one frame) of the animation screen.
Has a cell management table for registering the cells displayed in the table, and holds the components registered in the cells, the positions and shapes of the components, and the like. In the illustrated example, the cell management table has a plurality of rows. Each row of the cell management table has a number field, a component field, a position field, a size field, and a shape field. For example, in the second row of the top cell management table, number = 2, part = man, position = 500, 900, size = 1, shape = walk are entered. Actually, it is not just a walk, but a walk
(1), walk (2), walk (3),...

Each component for composing an animation is registered in the component library 4. That is, in the component library 4, the shape of the component and the size of the basic size (size 1) are determined by the shape registered in the cell management table (for example, Sc).
ale (1)) is defined as to what changes are made. Specifically, the component is a program, a bit image, or the like, and is registered in the component library 4 using the component name as an identifier.

The part library 4 includes a library provided by the animation creation support apparatus, but a part created by a user with a graphic creation tool or the like can also be registered.

The component management unit 3 manages components in order to register or delete a new component in the component library 4 or change the shape of the component in accordance with a command input from the input device 1.

The drawing mechanism 5 performs actual drawing with reference to the cell management table of the cell management unit 2. For example, assume a case where a graphic corresponding to wa1k (i) of the component man is displayed. The figure corresponding to the walk (i) of the part man is defined inside the part man of the part library 4, and the drawing mechanism 5
Refers to the cell management table for the position of the part man on the display, the size of the part man, and the shape of the man, and actually draws it on the display 6. The display 6 includes a drawing mechanism 5
Displays the animation drawn by.

The operation knowledge 8 holds, as knowledge, an arithmetic expression for calculating the size and position of the component with respect to the operation of the component (free fall, parallel movement, approach, etc.). The component information calculation unit 7 calculates the size, position, and the like of the component using the arithmetic expression of the operation knowledge 8, and sets these in the cells registered in the cell management table.

A process for generating an animation will be described. First, if necessary, a part is created with the input device 1 (mouse, keyboard, or the like) using a drawing creation tool, and registered in the part library 4 using the part name as an identifier. Animation is created by setting the position, size, and shape of a user-defined part or a part provided by the animation creation support device for a cell on the score. The value is set interactively with a mouse or the like while directly inputting a cell from a keyboard or displaying a component on an animation screen. The animation is performed based on cells arranged in time order.

A process for automatically generating a cell using operation knowledge will be described. Enter the first position and size in the cell where the operation starts for the score, and enter the last position and size in the cell where the operation ends. Next, translated from the input device 1, free fall, by entering the automatic generation command for the specified cell operation knowledge of such approach, and FIG. 6 (b)
As shown in (2), the position and size are automatically set in the cell.

In the automatic generation of a cell based on a link between components, an initial position and a size are input to a cell which starts an operation for a score. Next, when a link command designating the newly set cell and the already defined cell is inputted from the input device 1, the position and the position of the cell are automatically set as shown in FIG. 8 (b). The size is set.

[0044]

As described above, in the animation creation support apparatus of the present invention, since a part is defined as an object having a procedure relating to a shape change therein, the operation definition of the part can be simplified. I can do it. In addition, since the animation creation support device of the present invention has operation knowledge, by using the animation creation support device of the present invention, a cell can be automatically created by a simple designation, or automatically by a link between parts. A cell can be created automatically. Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to greatly reduce the burden on the user when creating animation for visualization and presentation of an algorithm, animation for entertainment, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the principle of the first aspect of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the principle of the second aspect of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shape change of a balloon.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of generating an animation by designating a shape change;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of creating an animation by designating a shape change.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an automatic cell generation method using operation knowledge.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of an automatic cell generation method using operation knowledge.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining an automatic cell generation method based on links between components.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an automatic cell generation method based on a link between components.

FIG. 10 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the animation creation support device of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a configuration of a score.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a human walking motion.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of an animation indicating the approach of an object.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of an animation representing the movement of a landscape.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 input device 2 cell management unit 3 parts management unit 4 parts library 5 drawing mechanism 6 display 7 parts information calculation unit 8 operation knowledge

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. An input device and a cell management table for registering and holding a part, a position, a size, and a shape change command of a part with respect to a cell based on a command input by the input device, and generate and update the cell. A cell management unit, a part library that holds parts used in animation, and a part that manages parts in order to register, delete, change shape changes, etc. for parts held in the part library Using the management unit and links between parts, the calculation of the position, size, etc. of parts
A component information calculation unit for automatically generating cells, a drawing mechanism for performing actual drawing with reference to a cell management table of the cell management unit, and a display for displaying animation drawn by the drawing mechanism. An animation creation support device comprising: 2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising operation knowledge for retaining knowledge of the operation, wherein the component information calculation unit calculates the position and size of the component by referring to the operation knowledge and automatically generates a cell. 2. The animation creation support device according to claim 1 , wherein: