http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9449
Muscle and bone bring animated characters to life
The program analyses a character’s body shape and works out
the skeleton and muscles that fit inside (Image: Jian Zhang/Xiaosong Yang)
“A system that automatically generates a biologically accurate skeleton and muscles could help movie and games animators create characters who move more realistically… In real life the way people look when they move is governed by their bones and muscles. By starting from the inside with a skeleton and working outwards by adding muscles it is possible to make very realistic animations that can even be used by surgeons (see Virtual humans aid surgery and product design).
Zhang and his colleague Xiaosong Yang (National Centre for Computer Animation in Bournemouth, UK.) have developed a system that takes the outward appearance of a character and automatically generates a skeleton and muscles to fit inside.”
Nice… but I prefer animations to look a bit crap.