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I've made a new video with voice-over demonstrating the capabilities of the now released Locomotion System, including the new features that enables it to be used with 4-legged animals: In the video I explain the features of the system step by step in a straightforward manner while demonstrating the effects. ...

The Locomotion System has been officially released last Friday concurrent with my presentation of it at Unite 2008. It is available for download at the Unity website: Go To Locomotion System From the website: About Take a look at how semi-procedural animation can dramatically improve the realism of animated humans and animals. Full Control of Style Animators are experts in creating motions with specific styles and personalities. The Locomotion System uses keyframed or motion-captured animations as input and only adjusts them minimally to move the feet correctly in a dynamic and detailed environment. ...

In a few weeks I'll be presenting the Locomotion System in a technical session at the Unite 2008 conference held at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen, Denmark, October 22-24, 2008. My session will be held 13:30 on Friday, October 24th: Walking and Running on Uneven Terrain Speaker: Rune Skovbo Johansen This session will present the free Locomotion System developed by Rune. The session will discuss how to let the system solve the complex tasks of blending multiple walk and run cycles and perform dynamic foot placement on uneven terrain while keeping animators and game programmers firmly in control of style and behavior. ...

I've made a video with voice-over demonstrating the capabilities of the Locomotion System I'm developing. The video is based on one of the interactive demos in the previous post. You can look at this high-res Quicktime video (106 MB) or at the lower quality YouTube video embedded below: In the video I explain the features of the system step by step in a straightforward manner while demonstrating the effects. ...

Lots of demos you can try this time - yay! Tip: For better performance, unload one demo before you view the next. Instructions for all demos below CommandKeyboardGamepad Walking-directionarrow keysanalog stick 1 Walking-speedshift- Facing-directionW, A, S, Danalog stick 2 Jumpspacebutton A Time slow down / speed upnumpad - / +- You can control the characters with either the keyboard or with a game pad. With a game pad, such as an XBox 360 controller, the direction and speed can be controlled precisely with ease, while independently controlling facing direction with the secondary stick. ...

When people see the Locomotion System in action, they sometimes get incorrect ideas about what the system can and cannot. Here is a brief description that can hopefully make things a bit more clear. The Locomotion System for Unity automatically blends your keyframed or motion-captured walk and run cycles and then adjusts the movements of the bones in the legs to ensure that the feet step correctly on the ground. The system can adjust animations made for a specific speed and direction on a plain surface to any speed, direction, and curvature, on any surface, including arbitrary steps and slopes. ...

I have just improved the system with three new features: Support for using walk cycles backwards. So for example a forward walk cycle can be used as a backwards walk cycle too (in lack of something better). Auto-synchronization. All walk and run cycles are now synchronized so you don't have to tell your animators "all animations must start on the left foot" or similar. Slightly more intelligent foot placement. ...

And now for something completely different. Well, slightly different anyway. In May last year I was Lead Game Programmer on the one-month student game production Flipside. The game has just one level, but it has a unique premise accompanied with a fantastic and crazy artistic style. Read more about it on playflipside.com (archived) or get my own angle on it on my website. It ended up winning of the 12 Independent Games Festival 2008 ...

I have not been good at updating the blog lately, but here's a new preview of the Locomotion System! Now characters can walk in any direction (forwards, backwards, sideways, and anything in between) with any speed. Characters can also start and stop walking with proper transitions. Click the image below to view the demo. UnityContent("http://runevision.com/multimedia/unity/locomotion/step_walk_03",480,320); ...

I just finished the first presentable demo. It is just one character with a fixed animation for now, and the foot step placement doesn't yet attempt to avoid intersecting geometry, but as an appetizer of what is to come, it will do. Click the image below to view the demo. UnityContent("http://runevision.com/multimedia/unity/locomotion/step_walk_01",480,320); The demo above is made from just one animation that was made for walking straight ahead on a plain surface. There are two primary techniques that were used here to make the animation look quite acceptable when the character walk up or down steps: ...

Creating a system for adaptive animation for character locomotion in computer games is not only a very exciting master thesis project, it is also my opportunity to work with an idea I have had for a long time. Back in 2001, when I was 18, I made rendered 3D animations in my spare time with the freeware raytracer POV-Ray. POV-Ray doesn't have a graphical front-end like 3Ds Max etc; instead you make your images and animations with a scripting language. ...

In the past week I have been continuing my work on a script to analyze the movements of the feet in walk and run cycles. The primary new result is the analysis of foot lifting and landing times. By analysis the script finds these times for each foot: Lift time: When the foot begins to lift from the ground. Liftoff time: When the foot lifts off completely from the ground. Strike time: When the foot first touches the ground again. ...

I have been working on a script to analyze the movements of the feet in walk and run cycle animations. From this analysis the speed of the character can be determined, as well as when and where the feet touch the ground. Click to see the analysis in action here: UnityContent("http://runevision.com/multimedia/unity/locomotion/animation_curves", 480,320); 3 graphs There are three graphs shown in the view. ...

I have just begun working on my Master Thesis, which I will be making in collaboration with the company Unity Technologies that make the awesome Unity game engine. The Master thesis will be about "Adaptive Animation for Character Locomotion", which basically means creating a system for adapting walking, running, and crawling keyframed animations to a dynamic environment. The system will take curved paths, uneven terrain, and variable speed into account all the while ensuring graceful footsteps without slipping feet and motions that stay as faithful as possible to the original keyframed animations under the given restraints. Inverse kinematics is one of many techniques that will be involved in this. ...

My website runevision.com has been online since 1998. Now, ten years later, runevision blog is started to make it simpler for me to communicate developments in ongoing projects and other things in my life. For a start, the blog will mainly be centered around my master thesis project on Adaptive Animation for Character Locomotion, which I have just begun working on. For the next half a year, this blog will be a place for myself and others to track the progress of the project, see the ongoing results, read about the thoughts behind the technical details, and roll eyes at the occasional silly remarks. ...

Website makeover! Finally, rune|vision has gotten a completely new design. The six years old dark and blue angled design has been replaced with a bright smooth lime and orange design, aimed to make it look more professional, and the content has been revised as well. Hope you like it! I've also uploaded my 3D image series Metal & Flowers, which is my most ambitious artwork yet, and an exercise in playful ironic contrasts, both visually and thematically. ...