Method and Apparatus for Enhancing Control of an Avatar in a Three Dimensional Computer-Generated Virtual Environment

• US 20100164946A1
• Filed: 12/28/2008
• Published: 07/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Hyndman, Arn
• Granted Patent: US 8,232,989 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/419
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/10 Control of the course of the game, e.g. start, progess, end
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/2145 the surface being also a display device, e.g. touch screens
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/42 by mapping the input signals into game commands, e.g. mapping the displacement of a stylus on a touch screen to the steering angle of a virtual vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/45 Controlling the progress of the video game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1068 being specially adapted to detect the point of contact of the player on a surface, e.g. floor mat, touch pad
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04808 Several contacts: gestures triggering a specific function, e.g. scrolling, zooming, right-click, when the user establishes several contacts with the surface simultaneously; e.g. using several fingers or a combination of fingers and pen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04815 Interaction with a metaphor-based environment or interaction object displayed as three-dimensional, e.g. changing the user viewpoint with respect to the environment or object
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/40 of characters, e.g. humans, animals or virtual beings

Abstract

A method and apparatus for enhancing control of an Avatar in a three dimensional computer-generated virtual environment is provided. In one embodiment, a user can control one or more controllable aspects of an Avatar directly via interacting with a touch sensitive user input device such as a touchpad or touch sensitive screen. Interaction with the touch sensitive user input device enables more precise control and more direct control to be implemented over the action of the Avatar in the virtual environment. Multiple aspects of the Avatar may be controlled, such as the Avatar'"'"'s forward motion, orientation, arm movements, and grasping of objects.

Claims

1. A method of enabling enhanced control over an Avatar in a three dimensional computer-generated virtual environment, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving input via a touch sensitive user input device; and

translating that input into direct control over a controllable aspect of the Avatar.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the touch sensitive user input device is a touchpad.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the touch sensitive user input device is a touch sensitive display.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the Avatar is implemented using skeletal animation in which the Avatar has a skeleton defined by Avars, and in which motion of the Avatar during an animation sequence is defined by specifying a plurality of keyframes of the Avars during the computer graphics animation sequence.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the touch sensitive user input is used to control execution of the computer graphics animation sequence by enabling the user to select one of the plurality of keyframes to enable partial execution of the computer graphics animation sequence.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the input via the touch sensitive user input device may be used to selectively move to subsequent or previous keyframes in the computer graphics animation sequence to enable the user to control the Avatar'"'"'s movement within the computer graphics animation sequence.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the Avatar is implemented using skeletal animation in which the Avatar has a skeleton defined by Avars, and in which the input from the touch sensitive user input device is used to directly control one of the Avars.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the direct control of the Avar enables the user to control the position and orientation of the Avar so that the user may cause the Avatar to move without requiring the Avatar to move through a predefined sequence of keyframes.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of receiving input via a touch sensitive user input device may enable the user to control the Avatar'"'"'s legs within the virtual environment to control a walking motion of the Avatar within the virtual environment.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving second input from another user input device to define how the input from the touch sensitive user input device is translated into direct control over the controllable aspect of the Avatar.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein there are a plurality of controllable aspects of the Avatar, and wherein the second input is used to select one of the controllable aspects of the Avatar to be associated with the input from the touch sensitive user input device.

12. A computer program containing data and instructions stored on a computer readable medium which, when loaded into one or more processors of a computer system, configure the computer system to implement a virtual environment that is able to receive user input from a touch sensitive user input device to enable a user of the computer program to use the touch sensitive user input device to directly control one or more of aspects of the virtual environment.

13. The computer program of claim 12, wherein the computer program includes a computer animation program configured to define computer animation sequences of an Avatar.

14. The computer program of claim 13, wherein the user input from the touch sensitive user input device may be used to control a speed with which the computer program executes a particular one of the computer animation sequence of the Avatar.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein each computer animation sequence specifies a series of keyframes, and wherein the user input from the touch sensitive user input device enables the user to select one of the keyframes within the computer animation sequence where the computer program should pause execution of the computer animation sequence.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the user input from the touch sensitive user input device enables the user to change which of the keyframes should be selected, to enable the user to selectively cause execution of the computer animation sequence to move forward or backward along the series of keyframes.