POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.animations : Unified Motion Protocol Server Time
3 Jul 2024 03:40:01 EDT (-0400)
  Unified Motion Protocol (Message 1 to 6 of 6)  
From: Florian Brucker
Subject: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 24 Jul 2003 10:50:58
Message: <3f1ff252$1@news.povray.org>
Hey guys!

Up till now, modelling and animating a character (e.g. a human being) in
POV-Ray is often a project-specific task. That means: You can do animated
characters (e.g. Rune's Alien), but the code for controlling the movement
always depends heavily on the model. Often, model and movement code can't be
seperated at all.
This makes it hard to reuse both the motion code and the model itself.

Therefore I thought about the following approach: Would it be possible to
split up the task into:
1. Modelling
2. Movement-Calculations

To make this possible, we would need something like a "Unified Motion
Protocol" (UMP), describing the interface between a model and the movement
code. My dream is as follows:

Every model that is built upon the rules of the UMP can be used with every
motion built upon the UMP.

A little example:
You have modelled a nice character for your upcoming animation. Normaly, you
now had to develop motion code for all the movements your character is
supposed to do, even if it's something that has often been done before
(walking for example). That sucks.
But if you had used UMP, you could just search for a suitable motion file
and just by including this file, your character could learn to play
basketball, dance, hold a speech...

A POV-file could propably look like this:

<code>
#include "santaclaus.inc" //a santa claus model
#include "hulk.inc" //hulk model
#include "walking.inc" //walking motions
#include "ump.inc" //ump system

//...
UMP_ResetModel
Walking_Run(/*lots of nice parameters go here*/)
SantaClause_ShowModel
UMP_ResetModel
Walking_Sneak(/*parameters...*/)
Hulk_ShowModel
//...
</code>

This would result in a running Santa Claus and a sneaking Hulk - and all
elements (Hulk, Santa Claus, Motions) could be developped individually by
different persons - the UMP would make sure that they all interact properly!

It is the same as searching for textures for your object - why do everything
from scratch if somebody has done it already?

My problem right now is: I am not experienced in character animation with
POV-Ray. So maybe everything i said right now is totally impossible and
therefore complete bullshit.

I'd really like to hear what more experienced povers think about this idea.
Fantastic? Impossible? Not worth the effort? Just tell me what you think
about it!

Thanks,
Florian


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From: ABX
Subject: Re: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 24 Jul 2003 11:02:22
Message: <t2tvhv447umfcvf9fca5g23pl9vvcesa92@4ax.com>
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:56:05 +0200, "Florian Brucker" <tor### [at] torfboldcom>
wrote:
> I'd really like to hear what more experienced povers think about this idea.
> Fantastic? Impossible? Not worth the effort? Just tell me what you think
> about it!

Possible but a lot of research. Good luck and I'm looking forward.
Here is an old thing you can find useful:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010218222019/http://www.win.or.jp/~kom/povray_e.html#theresa

ABX


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From: Mike Williams
Subject: Re: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 24 Jul 2003 14:39:28
Message: <hUUEbLANfCI$EwB0@econym.demon.co.uk>
Wasn't it Florian Brucker who wrote:

>I'd really like to hear what more experienced povers think about this idea.
>Fantastic? Impossible? Not worth the effort? Just tell me what you think
>about it!

Rather than reinventing the wheel, it would make sense to use the
existing BVH motion capture file format. This would mean that extensive
existing libraries of motion files could be used directly.

Some attempts have been made in the past to use BVH files in POV. See,
for example:-

<http://news.povray.org/3cb7397c@news.povray.org>
<http://news.povray.org/3cba97a7@news.povray.org>

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure


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From: Florian Brucker
Subject: Re: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 26 Jul 2003 10:21:57
Message: <3f228e85@news.povray.org>
Hey Mike!

> <http://news.povray.org/3cb7397c@news.povray.org>
> <http://news.povray.org/3cba97a7@news.povray.org>
Wow, you did a nice job. I didn't know that the BVH-Files were text-only. I
thought them to be binary stuff.
Only problem with BVH is that those files are for fixed seizes of models,
only. But thinking about it, it would be very hard to overcome this.

Thanks for your comments,
Florian


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From: Florian Brucker
Subject: Re: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 26 Jul 2003 10:21:58
Message: <3f228e86@news.povray.org>
Hey ABX!

> Here is an old thing you can find useful:
>
http://web.archive.org/web/20010218222019/http://www.win.or.jp/~kom/povray_e
.html#theresa
Thanks, I'll have a look at it!

Florian


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From: Mike Williams
Subject: Re: Unified Motion Protocol
Date: 26 Jul 2003 11:14:16
Message: <YPL6tAAykpI$EwXA@econym.demon.co.uk>
Wasn't it Florian Brucker who wrote:

>Only problem with BVH is that those files are for fixed seizes of models,
>only. But thinking about it, it would be very hard to overcome this.

Animation programs that use BVH files don't seem to have any problems
with that. You might see some problems if the captured motion requires
close interaction between various parts of the body, and the model is
built with limbs that have different proportions, but such cases tend to
be quite rare and would be a problem for any motion protocol that didn't
use inverse kinematics.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure


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