(Un)lucky Post #13

So I bet you’re wondering what we did this week.

Nicole changed the way she was dealing with the keyframed data. Instead of storing the path that each joint follows, she’s now storing each joint’s rotation values. This makes it much easier to re-construct the animation curves, since she doesn't have to deal with converting between beta splines and Maya's NURBS implementation. Nicole can output a file with all of the keyframed rotation values, as well as read a file with rotation values and create a keyframed animation from it. Omar is still working on modifying the curves, so Nicole tested her code with an unmodified file. As you can see, the model had no keyframes initially. When the code was run, it outputs the animated gesture:



She also animated two new gestures upon Libo’s request: an emphasis gesture (called beat) and a goodbye gesture.





QUESTION: Does anyone know what the goodbye gesture is in middle eastern countries? Nicole could not find any information about it. She looked online and in the gesture database. She animated a “western” goodbye gesture as a placeholder, but she isn’t sure if this gesture is universal.

Tomorrow, Nicole is going to work on connecting her code to Libo’s output.

Omar had some code that was working really nicely when Nicole was passing him joint translation points. Now that key frame points are being passed to him, he has had to change up his code a lot. He has been operating under the assumption that Nicole would always be passing in control points to his system. Now, the key frames are actual points on the curve that he has to generate. Consequently, he has had to add the extra step of solving for the control points from the given key frame points, and then he can interpolate given those control points. This required him to now use C++ again, because the algorithm for solving for control points is one that involves solving a matrix equation (i.e. solving for c in Ac = d given A and d). He did not want to have to adapt the math::matrix C++ code to MEL.

Though this has been a tedious process, it is working relatively well. He has been able to figure out how to get his already existing MEL code to interact with the new C++ code that he has been writing. Currently, he only has the curves being drawn. He has not gotten to reimplementing the Beta Parameters yet because he has run into some issues in drawing the curves. When a joint is stationary (i.e. not rotating) for a period of time within the motion, the points on the curve start to drift. He doesn't know if this is a Maya issue or if it comes from passing duplicate points into his own code. He is continuing to investigate.

Once the investigation is complete, he will be able to add the interactive Beta-parameter control once again and be able to move forward with figuring out how the Beta-parameters affect performance.

That's what we got. Soon we'll make a poster and prepare for the presentations!

Love,

Nelskati