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At present, the user of an animation system, such as 3D Studio Max, Maya, and Poser must devote consider time to setting the exact correspondence between animation figures and accompanying dialog and music. For example, when a character is talking, the motion of the characters mouth must be synchronized in detail with the vocal sound track. In previous research at the U. of Regina, performed by N. Scheidt under the supervision of H. Hamilton, techniques for automatically animating a human face to match vocal input were devised.
As well, the user of an animation system, must devote consider time to synchronizing the actions and reactions of characters. For example, when an aggressive character is approaching a fearful character, a correspondence, with suitable delays, must be established between their actions. In a behavior based animation system, such as the Anima system being developed at the U. of Regina, a portion of the animation flows from the specified personality parameters of the characters.
Finally, the user of animation system must configure many parameters
to create realistic seeming animations. For example, for the simplest
objects, the shapes, sizes, and colors (including the colors of ambient
light and the level of incandescence) must be set. The approach in
the AniMiner project is to mine data, such as pictures of real
flames and snowstorms, and set initial properties of the animation
system automatically. We will experiment by setting parameters of
3DS Max, Maya, and the Anima animation system created at the U. of Regina.
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