Abstract: | The generation of realistic and natural looking motions in the field of animation is a difficult and time consuming process. In recent years attempts have been made to computerise this process, not just to save in time and effort, but in the hope of producing far more realistic animations than before.
Physically based animation is one paradigm that has emerged in which realistic dynamic simulations of the characters are used to generate more plausible motions.
In this thesis I examine the use of Genetic Algorithms as a way of optimising these motions towards a specified task. Software has been written around the Dyncomp dynamics compiler (from the University of Toronto) to provide a testbed for this investigation.
Experiments using ;this software have produced interesting results, including an arm that evolves to throw a ball accurately and smoothly to a target.
This dissertation surveys the work done by others in this area, describes the testbed software and presents the results of experiments using this software.
|