Storage medium storing animation image generating program

• US 20040085320A1
• Filed: 05/20/2003
• Published: 05/06/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SEGA Corporation (SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: SEGA Corporation (SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: Nakamura, Kazunori, Kudoh, Hirokazu, Morishima, Shigeo
• Granted Patent: US 7,477,253 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/473
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/00 Animation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/44 Morphing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 345/956 Language driven animation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 345/957 Actor

Abstract

An animation image generating program is provided which allows animation images to be readily generated by CG without complicated setups, and more particularly the animation image generating program is suited to generate a plurality of types of face animation images by CG. The animation image generating program includes the steps of controlling selection of specific vertices of a standard model and a user model, providing control such that first target vertices are associated with second target vertices where the first target vertices are the selected specific vertices of the standard model and the second target vertices are the selected specific vertices of the user model, providing control by arithmetic means such that coordinates of the first target vertices approximate to those of the second target vertices, to generate fitting information, and animating the user model based on animation data of the standard model and on the fitting information.

Claims

1. A storage medium storing an animation image generating program which is run under the control of a computer system, the animation image generating program comprising the steps of:

controlling selection of specific vertices of a standard model and a user model;

providing control such that first target vertices are associated with second target vertices where the first target vertices are the selected specific vertices of the standard model and the second target vertices are the selected specific vertices of the user model;

providing control by arithmetic means such that coordinates of the first target vertices approximate to those of the second target vertices, to generate fitting information; and

animating the user model based on animation data of the standard model and on the fitting information.

2. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 1, the animation image generating program further comprising the step of controlling the vertices of the standard model based on the fitting information such that the shape of the standard model approximates to that of the user model.

3. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 1, the animation image generating program further comprising the step of defining deformations corresponding to text or voice data inputs in the fitting information.

4. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 2, the animation image generating program further comprising the step of defining deformations corresponding to text or voice data inputs in the fitting information.

5. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 1, wherein the control by arithmetic means such that coordinates of the first target vertices approximate to those of the second target vertices is performed by using affine transformation.

6. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 2, wherein the control by arithmetic means such that coordinates of the first target vertices approximate to those of the second target vertices is performed by using affine transformation.

7. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 3, wherein the control by arithmetic means such that coordinates of the first target vertices approximate to those of the second target vertices is performed by using affine transformation.

8. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 5, wherein the affine transformation is performed on a plurality of occasions.

9. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 6, wherein the affine transformation is performed on a plurality of occasions.

10. The storage medium storing animation image generating program according to claim 7, wherein the affine transformation is performed on a plurality of occasions.

11. A storage medium storing an animation image generating program which is run under the control of a computer system, the animation image generating program comprising the steps of:

controlling readout of a wire frame having target points on a face image of a standard model acting as a reference and readout of a face image of a user model;

controlling a CPU such that coordinates are specified in the face image of the user model by the wire frame set up by the user;

allowing the CPU to perform affine transformation of the coordinates of the target points of the standard model into target coordinates of the face image of the user model specified by the wire frame, to generate fitting information; and

animating the user model based on the fitting information and the standard model animation data.

12. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 11, wherein the affine transformation of the coordinates of the target points of the standard model into target coordinates of the face image of the user model is performed on a plurality of occasions.

13. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 11, the animation image generating program further comprising the step of casting a ray from a vertex of the face image of the standard model subjected to the affine transformation to the user model such that a projection point at the intersection between the ray and the user model is used as a new vertex to correct a triangle of the standard model.

14. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 11, the animation image generating program further comprising the step of defining mouth movements (deformations) corresponding to text or voice inputs in the fitting information.

15. The storage medium storing an animation image generating program according to claim 14, wherein the step of defining mouth movements includes the steps of:

casting a ray from the user model to the standard model to use as a projection point, the intersection between the ray and the standard model, for definitions of the deformations;

calculating a motion vector from the product of an affine transformation matrix and the projection point, the affine transformation matrix being obtained from vertices of the triangle prior and posterior to deformations corresponding to the text or voice input, of the standard model including the projection point; and

controlling the CPU such that the motion vector is added to the vertex of the user model corresponding to the target projection point to deform the user model.

16. A storage medium storing an animation image generating program which is run under the control of a computer system, the animation image generating program comprising the steps of:

controlling selection of coordinates of specific positions of a standard model and a user model;

providing control such that first target points are associated with second target points where coordinates of the first target points are those of the selected specific positions of the standard model and coordinates of the second target points are those of the selected specific positions of the user model;

providing control by arithmetic means such that the coordinates of the first target points approximate to those of the second target points, to generate fitting information; and

animating the user model based on animation data of the standard model and on the fitting information.