Pixar patents... interpolating between IK poses?

[robcat2075]

the language in the patent is pretty dense, I'm not sure what it is they are patenting that is new...

 

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8358311.html

[higginsdj]

It sounds like they are trying to patent taking the average of 2 values between 2 sets of values - are they serious!

[robcat2075]

I think they are trying to get something other than the straight-line inbetween of two poses, but you'd have to digest a lot of jargon to know.

 

"Evaluation time"?

[Ilidrake]

Are they serious? Can they do that???

[largento]

Sounds right, Robert.

 

My impression of it all was that it looks at Pose A and Pose B and adjusts the interpolation between the two to have realistic movement, removing the need to go back and key in-betweens to fix the straight-line movement of the joints.

 

I'd think the patent would have to be for their process of accomplishing this, not the actual doing of that ...since the end goal is to mimic real world anatomical movement, but the document was so dense, I gave up on reading any more of it. :-)

[robcat2075]

Although we rarely do it anymore, in A:M you can set up a chain of bones, pose them as if they were IK and they will interpolate as if they have been keyed in FK.

 

So I wonder if this Pixar thing is a similar result.

[John Bigboote]

Would'nt it be something if in their research to see who 'invented' the concept first it was discovered that Martin Hash had beat them to it...

[robcat2075]

Feature already in A:M?

 

You decide!

 

 

IKmakesFK.mov

[largento]

That's impressive!

 

I got the impression that Pixar's patent claim analyzed this after (?) the posing and somehow made the compensation based on analyzing the two poses, which would be different than this, but it seems like A:M's solution is much more practical and easier to implement.