Methods and systems for generating an animation control rig

An apparatus comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a non-transitory storage medium including instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, implement training a computer system to use motion capture data to animate an animation control rig describing a model in a plurality of poses, the instructions comprising:
• receiving training data, the training data including motion capture data associated with a target animation sequence;
• selecting parameters;
• generating a test animation sequence from the training data by using a matching system configured with the selected parameters;
• determining an error value by comparing the test animation sequence to the target animation sequence and accumulating positional differences of corresponding components;
• generating a set of error values by repeating the above selecting, generating and determining, wherein each iteration of selecting parameters varies at least one parameter by a step amount;
• analyzing the set of error values to identify a group of two or more error values that decrease more than a predetermined rate threshold;
• identifying parameters used to generate the identified group of error values;
• using a smaller step amount to vary one or more of the identified parameters in a second sequence of selecting, generating and determining, until a lower error value is found;
• and
• using the selected parameters corresponding to the lower error value to configure the matching system to use the motion capture data to animate the animation control rig.

A non-transitory storage medium including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, implement training a computer system to use motion capture data to animate an animation control rig describing a model in a plurality of poses, the instructions comprising:

• receiving training data, the training data including motion capture data associated with a target animation sequence;
• selecting parameters;
• generating a test animation sequence from the training data by using a matching system configured with the selected parameters;
• determining an error value by comparing the test animation sequence to the target animation sequence and accumulating positional differences of corresponding components;
• generating a set of error values by repeating the above selecting, generating and determining, wherein each iteration of selecting parameters varies at least one parameter by a step amount;
• analyzing the set of error values to identify a group of two or more error values that decrease more than a predetermined rate threshold;
• identifying parameters used to generate the identified group of error values;
• using a smaller step amount to vary one or more of the identified parameters in a second sequence of selecting, generating and determining, until a lower error value is found;
• and
• using the selected parameters corresponding to the lower error value to configure the matching system to use the motion capture data to animate the animation control rig.