JPH0798771A - Animation generating device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize a smooth and easily visible animation by narrowing a display interval of an image and increasing the number of times of the display, and also, displaying it at a high speed. CONSTITUTION:This device is constituted of an animation data store means 1 for storing the kind of an animation method, an animation data generating means 2 for calculating a shape, a position and an attribute of an object at a certain time and in a certain frame, based on the animation data, a display data store means 3 for storing the data calculated by the means 2, an image data generating means 4 for generating the image data from the data of the means 3, an updating control means 5 for controlling the number of objects calculated simultaneously by the means 2, and outputting a request for generating the animation to the means 4 after the means 2 finishes the calculation of an arbitrary number of pieces, and an image display means 6 for displaying the generated image data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an animation creating apparatus using a computer, and more particularly to a computer
The present invention relates to an animation creating device for creating and displaying an animation (moving image) with graphics or the like. In recent years, computer graphics, which creates and processes graphics and images using computers, has been used in all fields, and in particular computer animation has been widely applied in various fields such as architecture, commercial film, education, and design. There is. In computer animation, by calculating and processing the movements and deformations of a huge number of objects using a computer, the time required to create an animation can be greatly reduced. Furthermore, in computer animation, an animation display using physical laws requiring a large amount of calculation has begun to be used, and it is now possible to express an animation visually close to a natural phenomenon.

By the way, when creating an animation in which a large amount of calculation is performed on such a large number of objects, it takes a long time to calculate the data, and the animation eventually becomes awkward. Therefore, even when a large amount of calculation is performed on a large number of objects, there is a demand for a device that quickly performs calculation and processing and creates a smooth motion animation.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, an animation creating device basically has an animation data creating unit for calculating movement, deformation, etc. of an object, and geometric data (shape, shape, etc.) for the calculated object.
And an image data creation unit that creates image data (two-dimensional data) from three-dimensional data such as position.
The animation creation device uses these functions to calculate the movement and deformation of an object and create an image,
The above process is repeated to create an animation.
If both the animation data creation unit and the image data creation unit perform faster calculation and processing, a smooth animation can be created in real time.

Conventionally, the image data creating section has a lot of processing contents, but hardware (accelerator) and firmware have been developed, and higher speed processing has been realized.
On the other hand, since the animation data creation unit is required to perform more realistic movements and complicated deformation processing on a large amount of data, the load becomes large and it takes a lot of time to create data for one scene.

However, in the conventional animation creating apparatus, even if it takes time to create the data, the image is created after the movements and deformations of all the objects are calculated.

[0006]

Therefore, when the process in the animation data creation unit for calculating the movement or deformation of an object takes longer than the process in the image data creation unit for displaying an image, the display interval is increased. Has become longer, resulting in awkward motion animation. Therefore, there is a problem that an animation cannot be created in real time even if a faster image data creation unit is provided.

The object of the present invention was made in view of the above problems. By narrowing the display interval of images to increase the number of display times and displaying at high speed, visually awkward motions are eliminated. The aim is to create smoother, easier-to-see, and animated animations.

[0008]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an essential part of an animation creating apparatus according to the present invention. The present invention is an animation creating apparatus for creating a moving image using a computer, and an animation data storage means for storing data for movement or deformation of an object and a type of animation method including a law for processing the object. 1, animation data creating means 2 for calculating the shape, position and attribute of an object at a certain time T and a certain frame F based on this animation data, and display data storage for storing the data calculated by the animation data creating means 2. The means 3, the image data creation means 4 for creating image data from the data in the display data storage means 3, and the animation data creation means 2 control the number of objects calculated at one time, and the animation data creation means 2 is arbitrary. After the calculation of the number of Update control means for outputting a request for automation creation 5
And an image display means 6 for displaying the created image data.

Here, the animation data storage means 1 of the present invention specifically stores the contents of the animation data in the form of an object tree structure and a moving object list, and the moving object list is a moving object in the object tree. It is a list of. Also, the animation data creating means 2 of the present invention
Specifically, the data acquisition unit 21 that acquires the animation data from the animation data storage unit, the animation calculation unit 22 that calculates the position and shape of the object at the specified time, and the instruction from the update control unit 5 A control unit 23 for requesting the data acquisition unit to acquire animation data and a data storage unit 24 for instructing the storage of the calculation result are provided.

Further, the update control means 5 of the present invention, specifically, receives an instruction from the animation data creation means 2 to indicate the end and continuation of the update, and issues an update command to the update control data section 52. It includes a unit 51, an update control data unit 52 that stores the number of objects to be updated at one time and the number of updated objects, a display command unit 53, and a time control unit 54 that controls the time of update.

Further, the animation creating means 2 of the present invention comprises a weighting data section 25 for weighting the animation method. Further, the weighting data section 25 includes means for weighting the number of polygons.
Furthermore, the animation creating means 2 of the present invention includes a moving object list creating unit 26 that creates a moving object list.

Further, an image editing means 7 is further provided which allows the user to change the image control data and the weighting data.

[0013]

In the present invention, the animation data storage means 1
Stores the data for the movement and deformation of the object and the type of animation method such as what kind of law changes the motion of the object. The animation data creating means 2 stores a time T or a frame F from this animation data.
, The display data storage means 3 stores the data calculated by the animation data creation means 2, and the image data creation means 4 stores the image data from the data in the display data storage means 3. The update control means 5 controls the number of objects to be calculated at a time by the animation data creating means 2 and issues a creation request to the image data creating means 4 after the animation data creating means 2 finishes calculating an arbitrary number of objects. The image display means 6 displays the created image data and does not rewrite the screen at once after calculating the movements and deformations of all objects,
Increase the number of times the image is displayed to achieve smoother animation.

[0014]

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The animation data storage unit 1 stores various data for animation. This data includes information representing the shape, position, attributes (for example, surface color, etc.) of the object and the change (animation) of the object with time.

The animation data creation unit 2 receives the data in the animation data storage unit 1, the time T, the number of objects to be updated at one time, and the number of objects already updated at a certain time T from the update control unit 5, and the certain time T Calculate the shape, position, and attributes of the object in. Then, the animation data creation unit 2 calculates the number of updated objects, and stores the result in the display data storage unit 3.

The display data storage unit 3 stores data indicating the state of an object in a certain scene. The state of the object includes data such as shape, position and attribute. The image data creation unit 4 creates image data from the display data storage unit 3 and displays it on the image display device 6. The update control unit 5 has time T, the number of objects to be updated at one time, and the number of objects already updated at a certain time T, and issues a data creation request to the animation data creation unit 2. The update control unit 5 corrects (updates) the number of objects that have already been updated at time T based on the return value from the animation data creation unit 2. After that, a request for creating image data is output to the image data creating unit 4.

FIG. 3 is a processing flowchart of the apparatus shown in FIG. These steps correspond to the processing for producing one image. Animation is displayed by repeating this process. Step S1 is a process of the update control unit 5. The update control unit 5 has time T, the number of objects to be updated at one time (updated number), and the number of objects already updated at a certain time T (updated number). These data are sent to the animation creating unit 2 to instruct to calculate the state of the object at time T.

Step S2 is a process of the animation data creating section 2. The animation data creation unit 2
The state of the object at time T received from the update control unit 2 is calculated. The number of objects to be updated at one time is calculated. The animation data creation unit 2 has a list of objects that change with time (shapes, positions, and attributes change with time), and calculates the states of the remaining objects except for the number of objects that have already been updated at a certain time T.

Step S3 is a process of the animation data creating section 2. The animation creating unit stores the calculated result in the display data. The display data stores the shape, position, and attributes of the object. The original data is stored as the information of the object that is not calculated. Step S4
Is a process of the animation data creation unit 2. The animation data creation unit 2 checks whether or not the state calculation of all the objects at the time T has been completed by the current data calculation, and notifies the update control unit 5 of the result.

Step S5 is a process of the update processing unit 5. The update processing unit 5 updates the time T from the end information of the state calculation at the time T received from the animation data creation unit 2 when it is finished, and when it is not finished, it is already updated at the time T. The number of objects to be updated at once is added to the number of objects. After the processing is completed, a data creation request is sent to the image data creation unit 4.

Step S6 is a process of the image data creating section 4. The image data creation unit 4 creates image data from the display data and displays it. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of data contents of the animation data storage unit 1 of FIG. In the figure, is a tree, and shows the Tree structure of the object stored in the animation data storage unit 1. Each object can inherit the surface attribute (surface color, etc.) and position by having its parent object and child object. That is, the child inherits the surface attribute of the parent. For example, when the parent is red, if the child's color is not set, it becomes the same red as the parent.

In the figure is a moving object list, which is a list showing moving (moving) objects in the object tree. That is, the calculation for animation is performed on the objects on this list. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the contents of each object. In the figure, ID is the identification number of the object, and the surface attribute is the color of the surface of the object as described above. The position, shape, and surface attribute data of FIG. 5 are three-dimensional geometric data. This geometric data is the basic data of animation. The moving object has animation data in addition to the above geometric data.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of animation data. Animation data consists of an animation method and the data required for that method. Types of animation methods are shown in FIG. 7 described later. FIG. 7 is a correspondence table of animation methods. Animation methods include a dynamic method (physical law method) and a key frame method, but these methods are well known. In the dynamic method, the necessary data are the center of gravity data and the gravity data. In the key frame method, necessary data is position data of an object in a scene serving as a key (when there are a plurality of keys, a plurality of position data of the object).

In addition to these methods, it is possible to store shape changes using FFD and skeleton as animation data. The animation data creation unit 2 in FIG. 2 creates display data from the above animation. The animation data creation unit 2 creates the display data according to the instruction of the update control unit 5. The update control unit 5 controls the number of display data calculated at one time,
A command for creating display data is sent to the animation data creating unit 2.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the internal configuration of the animation data creation section of FIG. 2, and FIG. 9 shows an example of the internal configuration of the update control section of FIG. First, as shown in FIG. 9, the update control section 5 is composed of an update command section 51, an update control data section 52, a display command section 53, and a time control section 54.
The update control data unit 52 has the number of objects to be updated at one time (for example, 3) and the number of objects already updated (for example, 0) as illustrated. This already updated number of objects is
This corresponds to the data indicating up to what number in the moving object list of FIG.

Further, the update control unit 5 sends the update control data and the time T for updating (this time corresponds to a frame when displaying an animation, not an actual time) to the animation data creating unit 2. , Issue a command to create display data. Animation data creation part 2
Creates display data according to the received data.
Further, the “number of updated objects” of the update control data is incremented and passed to the update control unit 5. The animation data creation unit 2 passes to the update control unit 5 whether the update at time T is “finished” or “continuous”.

The update command section 51 of the update control section 5 updates the value of the update control data section 52, and when the update at the time T is "finished", requests the time control section 54 to increment the value and newly Receive time T. The update command section 51 transfers control to the display command section 53 after the processing is completed. Display command section 53
Sends an image data creation request to the image data creation unit 4 of FIG. 2 and transfers control to the update command unit 51. The update control unit 5 repeats the above processing to control the number of objects to be calculated at one time and create an animation.

On the other hand, the animation creating unit, as shown in FIG. 8, has a data acquiring unit 21 and an animation calculating unit 2.
2, a control unit 23, and a data storage unit 24. The animation data creation unit 2 starts the process when the update control unit 5 requests the calculation. First, the control unit 23 receives the update control data and the time T from the update control unit 5,
Start processing. Next, the control unit 23 requests the data acquisition unit to acquire animation data. When sending this acquisition request, the "number of objects to be updated at once" and the "number of updated objects" shown in the update control data are passed. Data acquisition unit 2
1 can know from the "number of updated objects" which object in the moving object list in FIG. 4 should be updated. In the case of FIG. 9, since the updated number of objects is 0, the data may be acquired from the data of the first object in the list.
The data acquisition unit 21 acquires three object data, which is the number of objects to be updated at one time, increments the “updated number of objects”, and returns control to the control unit 23. When the data acquisition unit 21 acquires the data up to the end of the list, the data acquisition unit 21 resets the number of objects to 0 and passes control to the control unit 23.

Next, the control unit 23 transfers the acquired object data and the time T to the animation calculation unit 22. The animation calculation unit 22 calculates the position and shape of the object at the indicated time T from the time T and the object data. The animation calculation unit 22 has a calculation routine for each animation method shown in FIG. 7, and executes calculation according to the animation method shown in the object data.

When the calculation is completed, the animation calculation unit 22 stores the calculation result in the data storage unit 24 and ends the process. The data storage unit 24 stores the calculation result in the display data storage unit 3 and transfers the control to the control unit 23. The control unit 23 confirms the value of “the number of updated objects”, and if the value is 0, considers that the calculation of the moving object list has been completed and sends an “end” request to the update control unit 5. When the value is other than 0, the “continuation” request is sent to the update control unit 5. This is the end of the process of the animation data creation unit.

10 and 11 show another example of the internal structure of the animation creating section shown in FIG. As shown, a weighting data section 25 is added to the animation creating section 2. The animation data creation unit 2 has data obtained by classifying the calculation time required for one object by an animation method, and by adjusting the number of objects to be calculated at one time, an image is displayed at short equal intervals. .

For such a purpose, a weighting data section 25 is provided in the animation data creating section. The weighting data section 25 is data classified by the processing time of each animation method. The weight of the data represents a difference in processing time due to a difference in animation method, and the weighting of the animation method takes a longer time. For example, as shown in the figure, the key frame method has a short processing time, so the weight data is "1", and the dynamic method has a long processing time, so the weight data is "3".

The weight data is data for making the one-time processing time of the animation data creating section 2 constant. A method of using this data to make the processing time constant will be described below. Since the processing of the control unit 23 is the same as that described above, the description thereof will be omitted. The data acquisition unit 21 can know from which item in the moving object list of FIG. 4 the object should be updated from “the number of updated objects is 0”. In this case, since the updated number of objects is 0, the data may be acquired from the data of the first object in the list.

The data of the object is acquired from the data acquisition unit 21 and the moving object list, and the animation method of the object is searched. The processing weight of the object is retrieved from the animation method and the weight data. For example, when the animation method is the dynamic method, the weight is “3”, so the weight of processing an object using the dynamic method is “3”.
Becomes The data acquisition unit 21 adds these weights together,
Object data is acquired until the "number of objects to be updated at one time" is reached. When "Number of objects to be updated at one time" is "3" and there is an object that has the dynamic method, the data acquisition number acquires the data of one object, and "Number of updated objects" is incremented by "1". Then, the process ends.

By doing this, it is possible to reduce the number of objects that require a long processing time and increase the number of objects that do not require a long processing time. Since the other components are the same as those in the above-mentioned case, the description will be omitted. Next, the weighting data section of FIG. 11 will be described. In FIG. 10, the weighting is based on the animation method.
Is the weighting by the number of polygons. That is, the calculation time that the animation data creation unit 2 takes for one object is
Data is classified according to the number of polygons of an object, and the number of objects to be calculated at one time is adjusted to display an image at short and even intervals. Data acquisition unit 21
Is the number of polygons in the shape data of the object when the data is acquired, and from the number of polygons and the weighting data,
Adjust the number of object data to be acquired.

Since the other components are the same as those in the above-mentioned case, the description thereof will be omitted. FIG. 12 shows still another example of the internal configuration of the animation data creation unit. As shown, a moving object list creation unit 26 is added. According to this example, the animation creating unit expresses a natural movement by selecting and processing the objects to be calculated at once so that they are evenly distributed on the screen. Moving object list creation unit 2
6 is a list in which the moving object list is recreated so that objects that are as far apart as possible on the screen are adjacent to each other.

This processing is started by the control unit when the animation starts. The process of creating the moving object list will be described below. The data at the top of the object tree in FIG. 4 is called a "root". First, find out how many children are in the route, and divide the moving object list by that number. Figure 4
In this case, since there are two children, the moving object list is divided into an object list included in the left object tree and an object list included in the right object tree. In this case, two lists will be created.

Next, the list divided into a plurality is made into one list. It is created so that the objects of the plurality of lists created when creating one list are interleaved. In the case of FIG. 4, one list is created from two lists. By creating the list in this way, in the case of FIG. 4, a moving object list is created in which the objects on the right side and the objects on the left side are alternately pointed.

Since the data acquisition unit 21 of the animation data creation unit of FIG. 12 sequentially extracts the object data from the created list, in the case of the data of FIG. 4, the object tree on the right side and the object tree on the left side are extracted. You will take them out alternately. In this way, the objects to be rewritten at the same time can be adjusted. Since the structure of the object tree also inherits the information on the position of the object, it can be considered that objects having the same parent are nearby. Therefore, by recreating the list by the above method, it is possible to control the objects to be calculated at once so as to be scattered on the screen.

FIG. 13 is a structural example of another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the image editing unit 7 is added to the configuration of FIG. The image editing unit 7 is connected to the animation data creation unit 2 and the update control unit 5 as shown.
By providing the image editing unit 7, the user can change the image control data and the weighting data.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the number of times the image is displayed is increased and the image can be displayed at high speed, there is an effect that an animation that is smoother, easier to see, and easier can be created by eliminating awkward motions.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a main part of an embodiment of an animation creating apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a processing flowchart of the apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of data contents of an animation data storage unit of FIG.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of contents of each object.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of animation data.

FIG. 7 is a correspondence table of animation methods.

FIG. 8 is an example of an internal configuration of an animation data creation unit in FIG.

9 is an example of an internal configuration of an update control unit in FIG.

10 is another example (No. 1) of the internal configuration of the animation creating unit in FIG.

11 is another example (No. 2) of the internal configuration of the animation creating unit in FIG.

FIG. 12 is still another example of the internal configuration of the animation data creation unit.

FIG. 13 is a configuration example of a main part of another embodiment of the animation creating apparatus according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Animation data storage unit 2 ... Animation data creation unit 3 ... Display data storage unit 4 ... Image data creation unit 5 ... Update control unit 6 ... Image display unit 7 ... Image editing unit 21 ... Data acquisition unit 22 ... Animation calculation unit 23 ... Control part 24 ... Data storage part 25 ... Weighting data part 26 ... Moving object list part 51 ... Update command part 52 ... Update control data part 53 ... Display command part 54 ... Time control part

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Asako Yumoto 1015 Kamiodanaka, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Fujitsu Limited

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An animation creating apparatus for creating a moving image by using a computer, wherein the animation data storage stores data for movement and deformation of an object, and an animation method type including a law for the processing thereof. Means (1), an animation data creating means (2) for calculating the shape, position and attribute of an object at a certain time T and a certain frame F based on the animation data, and the animation data creating means (2) A display data storage means (3) for storing data, an image data creation means (4) for creating image data from the display data storage means (3), and an animation data creation means (2) The animation data creation means (2) controls the number of objects to be calculated at one time, and After the completion of the calculation, the update control means for outputting a request for animation (5) with respect to the image data generating means (4), the image display means for displaying the image data created (6)
An animation creation device characterized by comprising: 2. The animation data storage means (1) stores the contents of animation data in the form of an object tree structure and a moving object list, and the moving object list is a list of moving objects in the object tree. The animation creating apparatus according to claim 1. 3. The animation data creating means (2) includes a data acquisition section (21) for acquiring animation data from the animation data storage means,
An animation calculation unit (22) that calculates the position and shape of an object at a specified time, and a control unit (23) that requests the data acquisition unit to acquire animation data based on a command from the update control unit (5). )When,
The animation creating apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a data storage unit (24) for instructing storage of a calculation result. 4. The update control means (5) receives an instruction from the animation data creation means (2) indicating the end and continuation of the update, and instructs the update control data section (52) to perform the update. A command unit (51), an update control data unit (52) that stores the number of objects to be updated at one time and the number of updated objects, a display command unit (53), and a time control unit (54) that controls the update time. The animation creating apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: 5. The animation creating means (2) comprises:
The animation creating apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising a weighting data unit (25) for weighting the animation method. 6. The weighting data section (25) further comprises means for weighting the number of polygons.
Animation creation device described in. 7. The animation creating means (2) comprises:
The animation creating apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising a moving object list creating unit (26) that creates a moving object list. 8. The animation creating apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an image editing means (7) which allows a user to change the image control data and the weighting data.