click
image for animated version
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Popular
cultures are full of simulated bodies moving in
virtual spaces, from Hollywood cinema (Titanic/
Planet of the Apes/ Lord of the Rings), through
television ('Walking with Dinosaurs'), computer
games and online flash & shockwave environments
(www.habbohotel.com
/ www.banja.com).
Each of these examples confronts us with virtual
movement in virtual spaces with varying degrees
of realism, each dealing with the problems of
recreating the complexities of human body movement
in their own unique way.
For
the virtual animator, recreating apparently simple
body movements, such as walking up stairs, is
a major task. Of course this is really a question
of realism. In a virtual environment, where nothing
is real, how do we make a virtual/ animated body
react in a 'real' human way to the non-physical
3D environment it is navigating?
In
the paper " Interactively Responsive Animation
of Human Walking in Virtual Environment "
, Shih-kai Chung & James K. Hahn explore the
problems posed by the need/ desire to simulate
human locomotion over uneven terrains. They recognise
that most animation systems use motion systems
that are not suitable for representing a human
negotiating obstacles or difficult ground.
They
further present research towards creating an animation
system that is capable of acurately depicting
complex locomotion in various 'difficult' terrains.
Explore>
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/241539.html
Is
it nessessary to acurately simulate human body movement
in virtual spaces? What
future applications could this have?
Should
we recreate bodies that move in new ways, in order
to explore new spaces?
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