TW201520875A - A method and apparatus for creating animations - Google Patents

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention disclose an apparatus and a method for producing novel as well as interested animations using a natural user interface. The animations produced can be shared with friends by transmitting to remote digital devices.

Description

Method and device for animation production

The invention mainly relates to a method for making an animation, in particular to an animation method using a natural user interface as a tool.

General animation, using grid-by-frame or using tween animation techniques for animation production, although the former can get better shadow, but it takes a lot of drawing manpower, while the latter can reduce the need to draw manpower, but the shadow is more It is rigid and mechanized, and the above-mentioned animation production methods all have the common feature that their actions are drawn by people or people and machines, so it is impossible to express the actual movements of the actual animated characters. However, due to advances in technology in recent years, Many motion captures (Motion Capture) have been developed for use in the production of 3D animations. Although these motion captures capture the true motion of an animated character, they need to be equipped with many sensors to truly There are still great inconveniences and limitations in capturing actions. U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 12/788,731 - "ACTIVE CALIBRATION OF A NATURAL USER INTERFACE", discloses an object tracking system, which is a natural user interface that tracks the skeleton information of an object and provides it to digital processing. The device can be used for value-added, such as animation simulation.

The present invention mainly includes a natural user interface 12 and an animation processing device 11 for drawing a novel and interesting animation device, and the animation processing device 11 includes a digital processing device 111 and an animation module. 112 and a computer animation character 113, the animation module 112 is electrically connected to the digital processing device 111. First, the computer animation character 113 is drawn, and the main character is drawn separately according to the skeleton part, and then imported into the animation. On the processing device 11, the digital processing device 111 receives the skeleton information of the actual animation character 13 tracked by the natural user interface 12, and uses the skeleton information to set the position and rotation angle of the skeleton portion corresponding to the computer animation character 113 for immediate execution. Animation drawing. By changing the drawn computer animation character 113, the action of the actual animated character 13 on the spot is used to create a unique and interesting animation.

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention uses a natural user interface 12 to obtain the skeleton information of the actual animated character 13 and applies it to the computer animation character 113 to create an animation, which includes a natural user interface. 12 is used to obtain the skeleton information of the actual animated character 13, an animation processing device 11 is used to draw the animation according to the skeleton information returned by the natural user interface 12, and the animation processing device 11 includes a digital processing device 111 for performing the animation. The module commands and processes the device from the natural user interface data, and the animation module 112 includes an animation drawing program for drawing the animation and a computer animation character 113 for displaying the animation result. The animation module is electrically connected to the digital position. The processing device, the digital processing device includes at least one processor and a memory module, and the natural user interface is electrically connected to the digital processing device. The present invention mainly includes a natural user interface 12 and an animation processing device 11, and the animation processing device 11 includes a digital processing device 111, an animation module 112, and a computer animation character 113. The animation module 112 is electrically connected to the animation module 112. The digital processing device 111 is mainly a program and data including animation processing. The digital processing device 111 is mainly composed of at least one processor and a memory module for executing instructions and processing from the animation module 112 from the natural user interface 12 . The device of the data is further drawn by the computer animation character 113. The natural user interface 12 is electrically connected to the digital processing device 111 of the animation processing device 11, and is responsible for monitoring the actual animated character 13 in the environment. When the actual animated character 13 appears in the environment, the natural user interface 12 captures and tracks the action of the actual animated character 13 in the environment, and converts the tracked information into skeleton information, and transmits it back to the connected animation processing. Device 11, in the animation processing device 11, the computer animation character 113 is used by the animation processing device 11 to display the captured actual motion FIG. 2 is a computer animation character 113 generated by using a drawing mode, FIG. 3 is a divided block obtained by cutting a part in FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 is a first preferred embodiment of the present invention. For example, it is mainly explained that the computer animation character 113 is cut according to the skeleton characteristic, and then the natural user interface 12 detects the action of the actual animation character 13 in the monitoring environment, and the natural user interface 12 will detect the actual animation character 13 The position of each joint is transmitted back to the animation processing device 11, and the animation processing device 11 calculates the rotation angle corresponding to each divided block of the computer animation character 113 according to the bone and joint position information returned by the natural user interface 12, and then sets the corresponding segmentation. The block rotation angle and then the position of the corresponding joint position can be used to obtain the animated frame at that point in time. 11 and FIG. 12 are respectively a second preferred embodiment and a third preferred embodiment, and are similar to the functions of FIG. 4, but the actual animated character 13 and the computer animation character 113 in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 can be different. Transform to create more fun. FIG. 3 is an initial drawing, that is, the subsequent animation is based on an initial drawing, and then the skeleton information returned by the natural user interface 12 is captured at an interval, and the initial drawing of FIG. 3 and the divided block is translated. And rotate, one by one to get each frame of the animation. The computer animation character 113 is cut into parts according to the parts, and two positioning points are selected in each part block, which are respectively a first positioning point and a second positioning point, and the positioning point can be combined with the natural user interface 12 The detected skeleton structure is consistent in position, which facilitates the setting of the subsequent partition location. The positioning point 2111 and the positioning point 2112 are respectively a first positioning point and a second positioning point of the block 211, and the positioning point 2121 and the positioning point 2122 are respectively a first positioning point and a second positioning point of the block 212, and the positioning point 2131 The positioning point 2132 is a first positioning point and a second positioning point of the block 213, and the positioning point 2141 and the positioning point 2142 are respectively a first positioning point and a second positioning point of the block 214, and the positioning point 2151 and the positioning point 2152 are respectively The first positioning point and the second positioning point of the block 215 are respectively the first positioning point and the second positioning point of the block 216, and the positioning point 2171 and the positioning point 2172 are respectively a block. The first positioning point and the second positioning point of the 217, the positioning point 2181 and the positioning point 2182 are the first positioning point and the second positioning point of the block 218, respectively, and the positioning point 2191 and the positioning point 2192 are respectively the first of the block 219. The positioning point 2201 and the positioning point 2202 are respectively a first positioning point and a second positioning point of the block 220, and the positioning point 2211 and the positioning point 2212 are respectively the first positioning point of the block 221 and the first positioning point The second positioning point, the positioning point 2221 and the positioning point 2222 are respectively the block 222 Positioning the first anchor point and a second point, a block of this division is provided with the positioning point, the spirit of the foregoing technologies may be adapted to the natural user interface 12 provided by the information needs of the animation and changed. The positioning points between adjacent blocks may be the same position or different positions. When designed to be the same position, the size of the overall character is kept consistent during the animation, and if the design is different, it is When the animation is played, the parts of the first animation character can be closely connected. Please refer to FIG. 3, FIG. 9 and FIG. 10. Taking block 214 as an example, the first positioning point is the positioning point 2141, and the second positioning point is Positioning point 2142, while in block 215, the first positioning point is the positioning point 2151, and the second positioning point is the positioning point 2152. However, the block 214 and the block 215 are adjacent blocks, wherein the block The second positioning point of 214 is the positioning point 2142 and the first positioning point of the block 215, that is, the positioning point 2151. The positioning point is set in two ways: one of the positioning points 2142 and the positioning point 2151 is the same as shown in FIG. Position, as shown in FIG. 10, in order to obtain a better joint effect when the joints of the two blocks of the block 214 and the block 215 are in a curved state, the second positioning point of the block 213 is The positioning point 2132 and the first positioning point of the block 214, that is, the positioning point 2141 are two different positions. , Allows the design to maintain a distance between two points, but this distance may be shorter for the two reference blocks, which block length is less than 80% preferably.

5A is a partial block diagram of the block 213, the block 214 and the block 215 of FIG. 3, and FIG. 5B is a figure formed by the action of FIG. 5A, corresponding to the block 213, the block 214 and the area of FIG. 5A. Block 215, which is block 313, block 314 and block 315 respectively in FIG. 5B, and the anchor point 2131, the anchor point 2132, the anchor point 2141, the anchor point 2142, the anchor point 2151, and the anchor point 2152 of FIG. 5A respectively correspond to the map. In the 5B, the positioning point 3131, the positioning point 3132, the positioning point 3141, the positioning point 3142, the positioning point 3151 and the positioning point 3152, the straight line 1213 in FIG. 5A is a straight line connecting the positioning points 2131 and 2132, and represents the direction of the block 213. The line 1214 is a line connecting the positioning points 2141 and 2142, representing the direction of the block 214, the line 1215 is a line connecting the positioning points 2151 and 2152, representing the direction of the block 215, and the line 1313 in FIG. 5B is the connection positioning point 3131 and The straight line of 3132 represents the direction of the block 313, the straight line 1314 is a straight line connecting the positioning points 3141 and 3142, representing the direction of the block 314, and the straight line 1315 is a straight line connecting the positioning points 3151 and 3152, representing the direction of the block 315. 5A is a subset of FIG. 3, FIG. 6 is the angle between the direction of the block 213 in FIG. 5A and the block 313 after the movement in FIG. 5B, and FIG. 7 is the direction of the block 214 in FIG. 5A and the movement in FIG. 5B. The angle between the block 314 and FIG. 8 is the angle between the direction of the block 215 in FIG. 5A and the block 315 after the movement in FIG. 5B. To clarify the calculation of the angle, the angle between the block 213 and the block 313 is For example, the position in FIG. 3 and FIG. 5A is the first animation position, and the position in FIG. 5B is the second animation position, and the coordinates of the positioning point 2131 in the first animation position are (x ₁₁ , y ₁₁ , z ₁₁ ), positioning The coordinates of point 2132 are (x ₁₂ , y ₁₂ , z ₁₂ ), the coordinates of the anchor point 3131 in the second animation position are (x ₂₁ , y ₂₁ , z ₂₁ ), and the coordinates of the anchor point 3132 are (x ₂₂ , y _{22 )} , z ₂₂ ), let [number 1] , [Number 2] Then, the angle of rotation is equal to the angle between the block 213 and the block 313 is [3] Where [4] The vector from the anchor point 2131 to the anchor point 2132, and [5] The vector from the anchor point 3131 to the anchor point 3132, and [6] Is an inverse cosine function, and ‧ represents the inner product of the vector, which mainly uses two unit vectors [number 7] , [Number 8] In order to obtain the angle of the present invention, in order to make the present invention more comprehensive and generalized, although the foregoing calculation is expressed in a three-dimensional manner, in the case of two-dimensional, as long as one of the aforementioned calculation formulas is not required to be used, the dimension is set to zero. It can be a two-dimensional calculation method. The foregoing FIG. 5A is referred to as a reference map or a reference grid to calculate the rotation angle of FIG. 5B or subsequent corresponding blocks, as shown in FIG. 13 , wherein the frame 401 is the initial drawing of the animation, and the frame 402 is the animation. In a frame, the frame 403 is the n-1th frame of the animation, the frame 404 is the nth frame of the animation, and the frame 404 is the frame to be drawn currently. The selection of the reference picture has the following practices: When starting the production, when there is no previous animation position for reference, that is, the first frame of the computer animation character, the initial drawing of the frame 401 is used as the reference image, and the rotation angle of the corresponding segment is calculated and currently drawn. If the animated frame is not the first frame, the previous frame can be used as the reference frame. In the case of frame 404, it is frame 403, and the second animation position is the natural user interface. The current position of each skeleton block of the actual animated character 13 is returned. In addition, in the non-first frame, in addition to the information of the above animation frame as the reference image, the initial drawing may be used as the reference image, but compared with the above one frame as the reference image, when the above frame is the reference image The rotation angle and translation are usually small, and the animation is smoother when played. As shown in FIG. 14, the animation of the present invention includes the step 501 of first dividing the computer animation character into a plurality of blocks, and then performing step 502 to draw the initial drawing of each block of the computer animation character one by one and set the positioning of each block. Point and record the position, step 501 and step 502 draw the pre-work for the animation, after the pre-job is completed, then step 503 determines whether the drawing of the animation has ended, and the judgment is based on the operation from the user, such as pressing If the end time of the end key or the animation has reached the set time or the environment cannot detect any actual animation character 13 and the like, and the result is the end animation drawing, the end animation drawing operation of step 506 is performed, if step 506 is performed. If it is determined that the animation is continued to be drawn, step 504 is performed to draw the current frame. After the current frame is drawn, step 505 is performed. If the reference image is set to the previous frame, the reference image is updated to the current frame and waits for a fixed time. When the waiting time arrives, jump back to step 503 to draw the next frame, and the length of the waiting time is framed by the animation every second. The number (FPS; Frames Per Second) determines that the available time per frame is 1/FPS, and the aforementioned waiting for a fixed time can be implemented in an event-driven manner, that is, in a set timer manner, and the time interval is For 1/FPS, it can also be waited in the traditional loop mode, and its waiting time is 1/FPS minus the frame preparation and drawing time. The operation program of step 504 is as shown in FIG. 15. The drawing procedure for drawing a single frame process is as follows: First, as step 511, it is determined whether the currently drawn animation frame is the first frame; if it is the first frame, then step 512 is followed. The base drawing of the drawing animation is set as the initial drawing. Otherwise, if it is not the first frame, the reference drawing of the subsequent drawing animation is set to the previous frame as in step 513, and then step 514 can be performed to perform the single block animation drawing method. The animation of all the blocks is drawn, and the single block animation is drawn as shown in FIG. 16. First, the second animation position is received from the natural user interface as in step 521, and the second animation position is obtained, and then the block is calculated as in step 522. The angle between the rotation of an animation position and the second animation position of the block, using the calculated angle, and then rotating the angle of the rotation calculated by the previous step in the block reference map as in step 523. Finally, the previous step is as in step 524. The first positioning point of the rotated block is translated to the position of the first positioning point of the block in the second animation position. It is particularly emphasized here that the first animation position is the position of the reference image, and the second animation position is the current position returned by the natural user interface. For the calculation of the position, there is a method, which is expressed in a relative coordinate manner, that is, a specific position of a specific block or object in the selected scene, such as the positioning point 2121 of the block 212, which is a reference point, and the relative coordinates of the reference point can be Set to any coordinate, considering the convenience of the operation, usually set to the origin (0,0) or (0,0,0), and the absolute coordinates of the other points are subtracted from the absolute coordinates of the reference point. Find the relative coordinates.

The animation module 112 creates the animations according to the foregoing procedures, merges them into a complete frame, and reads the second animation position returned by the natural user interface 12 in a fixed time interval. Then, the frames of each time point are generated one by one, and each frame is played in time sequence to complete the animation.

The present invention can be connected to the Internet 15 through the digital processing device 111, and the completed animation can be stored in a specific format and transmitted to the remote digital device 14, which can be a The mail server can be emailed to friends and family, or even any email account. The remote digital device 14 can also be a video server such as YouTube, through which the uploaded animation can be shared with other netizens. The remote digital device 14 can also be a web server, which can directly upload the uploaded animation through the webpage and play on the viewer's computer. The remote digit device 14 can also be a server of a social web site, and the animation uploaded by the digital processing device 111 distributes the animation message to the friend via the social networking website, and the friend logs in to the community. Once you have the site, you can watch the uploaded animation. The remote digitizing device 14 can also be a remote animation playing device, and the animation of the actual animated character 13 is generated by the present invention to generate an animation of the computer animated character 113 to be transmitted to the remote animation playing device through the network. At the same time, the remote digital device 14 can also be a cloud server, which utilizes the mechanism of the cloud to spread the interesting animations produced by the present invention to friends and relatives for viewing, thereby creating a more diverse taste and mood.

The aforementioned natural user interface 12 may be a device capable of providing skeleton information of an object to operate together with the present invention, and the skeleton information mainly includes a 3D position of each skeleton including a depth of field, which may be a 3D camera nowadays, or includes a Detector. A device for measuring infrared depth with a camera, or a device that includes a radio wave tag and a radio wave sensor to acquire 3D information of the skeleton. For the 2D animation production natural user interface 12 only need to provide 2D skeleton position information. In addition, if the natural user interface only provides 3D coordinates, it can be done by Computer Graphics' 3D to 2D technology, that is, adding a 3D coordinate to 2D coordinate at the output of the natural user. The module and the group are calculated and then output as 2D coordinates.

11‧‧‧Animation processing device
12‧‧‧Natural user interface
13‧‧‧Actual animation characters
14‧‧‧Internet
15‧‧‧Remote digital device
111‧‧‧Digital processing unit
112‧‧‧Animation module
113‧‧‧Computer animation characters
Block 211‧‧‧ Block 211
212‧‧‧ Block 212
213‧‧‧ Block 213
214‧‧‧ Block 214
215‧‧‧ Block 215
216‧‧‧ Block 216
217‧‧‧ Block 217
218‧‧‧ Block 218
219‧‧‧ Block 219
220‧‧‧ Block 220
221‧‧‧ Block 221
Block 222‧‧‧ Block 222
401‧‧‧ initial drawing
402‧‧‧ first frame
403‧‧‧n-1 frame
404‧‧‧ nth frame
501‧‧‧Step 501
502‧‧‧Step 502
503‧‧‧Step 503
504‧‧‧Step 504
505‧‧‧Step 505
506‧‧‧Step 506
511‧‧‧Step 511
512‧‧‧Step 512
513‧‧‧Step 513
514‧‧‧Step 514
521‧‧‧Step 521
522‧‧‧Step 522
523‧‧‧Step 523
524‧‧‧Step 524
1213‧‧‧Line 1213
1214‧‧‧Line 1214
1215‧‧‧Line 1215
1313‧‧‧Line 1313
1314‧‧‧Line 1314
1315‧‧‧Line 1315
2111‧‧‧Location 2111
2112‧‧‧Locating point 2112
2121‧‧‧Location 2121
2122‧‧‧Locating point 2122
2131‧‧‧Location 2131
2132‧‧‧Location 2132
2141‧‧‧Location 2141
2142‧‧‧Location 2142
2151‧‧‧Location 2151
2152‧‧‧Locating point 2152
2161‧‧‧Locating point 2161
2162‧‧‧Locating point 2162
2171‧‧‧Locating point 2171
2172‧‧‧Location 2172
2181‧‧‧Locating point 2181
2182‧‧‧Locating point 2182
2191‧‧‧Location 2191
2192‧‧‧Location 2192
2201‧‧‧Location Point 2201
2202‧‧‧Location 2202
2211‧‧‧Locating point 2211
2212‧‧‧Locating point 2212
2221‧‧‧Locating point 2221
2222‧‧‧Location 2222

Figure 1 is an architectural diagram of the present invention. Figure 2 is a computer animation character. Figure 3 is a block diagram of a computer animation character. Figure 4 is a first preferred embodiment of the present invention. Figure 5A is an initial animation of a computer animation character segmentation block. Part of the divided block after the action Figure 6 The calculation of the angle between the block before and after the movement of the block 213 Figure 7 The calculation of the angle between the block 214 before and after the movement Figure 8 The calculation of the angle between the block 215 before and after the movement Figure 9 The setting of the positioning point Figure 10 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 11 is a second preferred embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 12 is a third preferred embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 13 is a reference drawing and an initial drawing. FIG. 14 is an animation drawing flow chart 15 drawing a single frame animation FIG. Block animation Figure 17 animation network sharing mode

11‧‧‧Animation processing device

12‧‧‧Natural user interface

13‧‧‧Actual animation characters

111‧‧‧Digital processing unit

112‧‧‧Animation module

113‧‧‧Computer animation characters

Claims (8)

A method of using a natural user interface to create an animation for drawing a single block, the steps comprising: (a) receiving a second animation position from a natural user interface; (b) calculating a first animation position of the block (c) rotates the rotation angle calculated by the previous step with the block reference map; (d) shifts the first positioning point of the block after the previous step to the first position The position of the first positioning point of the block in the second animation position. A method of using a natural user interface to create an animation, which is used to draw a single frame, the steps include: (a) first determining whether the currently drawn animation frame is the first frame; (b) if the first frame is Then, the base drawing of the subsequent drawing animation is set as the first frame; (c) if it is not the first frame, the base drawing of the subsequent drawing animation is set as the initial drawing; (d) the single block animation of the request item 1 is drawn. Method, draw an animation of all the tiles of the frame. A method of using a natural user interface to create an animation, comprising the steps of: (a) first dividing a computer animation character into a plurality of blocks; (b) drawing an initial drawing of each block of the computer animation character one by one; (c) Determine whether the drawing of the animation has ended; (d) If it is determined that the drawing is finished, the ending animation drawing operation is performed; (e) If it is determined that the drawing is continued to be drawn, the current drawing is drawn by the single drawing method of the request item 2. (f) If the reference map is set to the previous frame, the reference map is updated to the current frame and waits for a fixed time; (g) returns to step c. A device that uses a natural user interface to create animations, using a natural user interface to obtain skeleton information of an actual animated character, and applying it to a computer animated character to create an animation, including a natural user interface for obtaining an actual animation. The skeleton information of the character, an animation processing device is used to process the skeleton information of the natural user interface back to draw the animation, and the animation processing device further comprises a digital processing device for executing the instruction from the animation module and an animation module. The program including the animation drawing is used to draw the animation and a computer animation character is used to display the animation result. The animation module is electrically connected to the digital processing device, and the digital processing device includes at least one processor for processing all the instructions, a memory of the present invention. The body module is used for storing data, and the natural user interface is electrically connected to the digital processing device. The method of using a natural user interface to create an animation as described in claim 1, item 2 or item 3, wherein the natural user interface is a device for providing 2D or 3D position information of the object skeleton. A device for making an animation using a natural user interface as described in claim 4, wherein the natural user interface is a device that provides 2D or 3D position information of the object skeleton. A device for making an animation using a natural user interface as described in Item 4 or Item 6, wherein the digital processing device is connected to the Internet to transmit the drawn animation to the server via the Internet. A device for making an animation using the natural user interface as described in item 4, item 6, or item 7, wherein the server can be a mail server or a web server or a file server or a social networking site. Server or video server or remote animation player or cloud server.