[x3d-public] Purpose of X3Dng -- Animation

[Joe D Williams]

> In all your writings you appear to be making the assumption that
> joint-based animation with deformable skin is H-Anim. That is not 
> true

What part is not true? Stop saying stuff like that,
more below. Finally you put together a phrase "joint-based animation 
with deformable skin" that describes one aspect of HAnim almost 
perfectly, then you utterly fail by saying it is not true.

> I don't really know what H-Anim is ...

I know you don't know. there is hope, more below,

> It is not even physically human because
> it does not account for sub-skin material like muscles.

Thanks for that observation, Leonard.
If you want the muscle to bulge, then you will want something like the 
DIsplacer. Don't worry, every tool that can help you author mesh 
animations with or without a skeleton has one of these. Animation 
without joints can be fun, but if you are doing anything humanoid, 
then sooner or later you want to take control of that skin so X3D 
HAnim allows you to take control of that skin using a skeleton, 
keyboard, and user code.

The joint actuated mesh animation is the top of the line open tech, 
but really only moves the skin vertex in an arc that depends upon its 
distance from the joint. Character animators will use a combination of 
joint-actuated and general Displacer like tools to move the mesh.

Of course we would like to update what we have of the skeleton system, 
like tendons and cartilidge to improve the completness of the 
skeleton. Maybe add ideas from rigid body physics to produce 
musculature. How about a field for internal organs? Show better 
examples of how to add accessories and sensors and haptics and fancy 
llghting effects to the model?

Improvements are possible because the HAnim character has all the 
basics to have extended capabilites and features. Hey, as I said, VRML 
and X3D features are designed to produce a realistic interactive 
humanoid. All the rest is for accessories, scenery, and props.

In a way I am sorry that you are not inspired by the shortcomings of 
our beloved and reflecting industry best practice for its current 
scope HAnim model, and try to think of how to improve and extend. But 
first you would need some experience and I am guessing you have not 
read any or run many X3D HAnim examples. In fact, if you studied the 
example pictures in your blog, you would see exact parallels with 
current HAnim.

> but joint-based animation with deformable skin is
> another technique of animation.

joint-based is the highest form. Animation of meshes without joints is 
something else, some special nodes and good tutorials, but not a 
process for the standards-track. Did you study the DIsplacer? If you 
understand coordinate interpolators and how mesh can be animated, 
then, it is easy to understand the Displacer. In fact it is a giant 
clue for your last month's project, the Animator node.

> I don't really know what H-Anim is (the spec, especially V2 is 
> rather
> unclear on the topic),

Yes, sorry about Part 1 V2.0, just slightly not ready yet. But the 
V1.0 is clear enough once you see that all we are doing this rev of 
the architecture is potentially adding some hand joints to get more 
realistic hand animations and potentially completing the foot bones. 
This will give an LOA4 which is a very complete and realistic 
medical-grade skeleton. Except some folks don't like the medical names 
for parts, but hey, you gotta call each piece somethng. The author can 
always decide, but the 'standard' animation would use the 'standard' 
interface names.

Most authoring systems will begin with a lower LOA skeleton, LOA 1 or 
2, which is barely enough to get interesting, but you could build it 
in any authoring tool to a full loa4. We give all the dimensions in 
human space, using world reference standard CAESAR data in Annex A, so 
you can build one from scratch and customize the dimensions to match, 
for instance, yourself.

You may be interested in V2.0 Part 2 where we are developing the idea 
that mocap keyframe data using a non-standard skeleton, where 
'standard means one of the X3D HAnim LOA0-4 skeletons, can be 
converted and used with an X3D 'standard' skeleton. The offering 
includes the idea of comparing skelton hierarchies and a "Motion" node 
that processes various forms of data that may be produced by some 
motion capture systems or animation authoring tools and uses it to run 
the skeleton in a realtime environment.

> In all your writings you appear to be making the assumption that
> joint-based animation with deformable skin is H-Anim. That is not 
> true.

What part is not true? Stop saying stuff like that,
HAnim is a prime example of joint-based animation with deformable 
skin.
Congratulations, that phrase 'joint-based animations' was the first 
clue you might understand this stuff. However, you turn that bright 
hope around by saying the truth you said is not true.
It is true. But I don't think you are really reading any responses 
anyway.

We pick this form *joint-based animation' because all authoring tools 
do these basics.
To transport joint-based animations between different characters, we 
need the same joint base. That is the whole purpose of HAnim, to give 
a 'standard' skeleton that can be animated using 'standard' routines.

> The example in the post shows that it is just another animation 
> tool.
> The "character" it is animating is a pipe.

yes, i think i get it. This example could be compared with a finger 
flexing. Same idea for othet joints. Not a great example, though. Look 
for one where they show real character animation with realistic joints 
and skin. It does look like the art shows that it uses joints and it 
does look like the 'skin' is being deformed according to the joints 
rotations that produce the bends. That is basic stuff. Wanna know how 
they do those tricks?

> It is not even physically human because
> it does not account for sub-skin material like muscles. This is
> especially noticeable when bending an arm, a leg, or flexing a
> character's back.
>

Srill looking for some examples that helped you discover these 
factoids.
I hope you are satisfied that yes, acounting for sub-skin material is 
advanced animation, and that X3D combinations of HAnim joint actuators 
and Displacers can fake it as well as any system out there.

If you find a system that does muscles, invite them in.

> I don't really know what H-Anim is ...

I know you don't know, I am getting that message loud and clear, but 
really, I am trying to help.
All I would appreciate from you is a little study of the basic 
concepts of what we are talking about. As I have said before, if you 
learn our hanim then you will be in a great positon to evaluate 
character modeling and general mesh animation tools.

Brief looks at the UI of some authoring tool that does not even export 
HAnim is not a good background. Look at 3dsmax or maya if you can. 
They have professional tutorials and they support HAnim.
Other free general tools that do hanim, like the ones in your blog are 
worth a look if you have an idea about what you are looking at.
Failure to look at X3D tools especially the current high end ones like 
BS contact and studio (both free) or other free X3D ones and even the 
html5 and not using them to look at some of our example HAnim is not a 
good sign of progress going forward.

Good Luck in your quest,
Joe






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leonard Daly" <Leonard.Daly at realism.com>
To: "Joe D Williams" <joedwil at earthlink.net>; "X3D Public" 
<x3d-public at web3d.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 9:23 PM
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Purpose of X3Dng -- Animation


> Joe,
>
> In all your writings you appear to be making the assumption that
> joint-based animation with deformable skin is H-Anim. That is not 
> true.
> I don't really know what H-Anim is (the spec, especially V2 is 
> rather
> unclear on the topic), but joint-based animation with deformable 
> skin is
> another technique of animation. It is not even physically human 
> because
> it does not account for sub-skin material like muscles. This is
> especially noticeable when bending an arm, a leg, or flexing a
> character's back.
>
> The example in the post shows that it is just another animation 
> tool.
> The "character" it is animating is a pipe.
>
>
>
> On 10/20/2016 12:32 PM, Joe D Williams wrote:
>> I suggested asking a question about X3D in relation to the material 
>> in
>> the blog here is one.
>
>
> -- 
> *Leonard Daly*
> 3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
> LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
> President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
>