Ladislav Kavan

ETH Zurich
Interactive Geometry Lab
Dept. of Computer Science
Zurich, Switzerland

"3D Virtual Characters: Skinning, Clothing, and Weird Math"

 

Abstract

In this talk I will present my research on real-time 3D graphics and virtual characters. In the first part, I will introduce myself and several projects I've been working on. In the second part, I will talk in detail about skinning---a popular method to animate virtual characters in real-time. I will explain how dual quaternions can be used to obtain better quality skinning than the standard technique based on matrices. I will follow with our approach to real-time cloth animation, discussing how to create an upsampling operator that adds fine-scale details to coarse mesh simulations. The main tricks needed to make upsampling work robustly include harmonic regularization (an extension of the classical Tikhonov approach) and our take on "tracking," i.e., constraining fine-scale physics to follow a given coarse-scale animation. Finally, I will conclude with some ideas for future work, for example, how to make digital content creation more intuitive.

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