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US 7,095,413 B2Granted
Animation producing method and device, and recorded medium on which program is recorded
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorTadahide Shibao
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AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorTadahide Shibao
Estimating the term…
An animation creating device creates composite animation, in which an object has been added to a pre-described animation image that includes a motion object, the animation creating device including: an additional object selecting section (14), which selects an additional object; a motion animation creating section (20), which generates motion animation, in which the motion object moves according to the selected additional object, using the pre-described animation image; and an animation composite section (15), which combines the motion animation with an animation image of the additional object. This provides an animation creating method and an animation creating device with a capability to create composite animation with simple operations and in a short period of time. An animation creating program, which is provided to execute the animation creating method on a computer, is recorded in a computer-readable recording medium.
An animation creating method for creating composite animation by entering editing instructions so as to add a previously created second object to a pre-described animation that includes a first object, said method comprising the steps of:
An animation creating method for creating composite animation by entering editing instructions so as to selectively add at least one of a plurality of previously created second objects to a pre-described animation that includes a first object, said method comprising the steps of:
An animation creating device for creating composite animation by entering editing instructions so as to add a previously created second object to a pre-described animation that includes a first object, said animation creating device comprising:
A computer-readable recording medium recording an animation creating program that creates composite animation upon entry of user editing instructions, by adding a previously created second object to a pre-described animation that includes a first object,
An animation creating program that creates composite animation upon entry of user editing instructions, by adding a previously created second object to a pre-described animation that includes a first object,
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Animation
Indexing scheme for animation: animation software package
Image data processing or generation, in general
Term ended 5 Mar 2022 (estimated)
This application is the national phase under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of PCT International Application No. PCT/JP01/04472 which has an International filing date of May 28, 2001, which designated the United States of America.
The present invention relates to animation creating methods and animation creating devices, and animation creating programs and computer-readable recording media recording same, which are used to automatically create animation. The invention particularly relates to animation creating methods and animation creating devices, and animation creating programs and computer-readable recording media recording same, which are used to automatically create character animation, in which facial expressions and motions of human figures are realized on computer applications, such as that using personal computers.
More particularly, the present invention relates to animation creating methods and animation creating devices, and animation creating programs and computer-readable recording media recording same, which serve as an authoring tool that can automatically create a character motion that corresponds to an additional object, only by choosing an object to be added to the character animation, in addition to automatically creating animation of the additional object.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing one embodiment of an animation creating device according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a drawing schematically showing one example of an object used in the animation creating method according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a drawing showing one example of a data structure of pre-described animation image data used in the animation creating method according to the present invention.
One embodiment of the present invention is described below with reference to FIG. 1 through FIG. 12. An animation creating device according to the present embodiment creates composite animation in accordance with editing instructions of a user, wherein the composite animation is created by adding a previously created second object (“additional object” hereinafter) to pre-described animation image data, which is image data of a representative frame of animation containing a first object (“motion object” hereinafter). Note that, the image data of the pre-described animation may be image data of a plurality of frames of the animation containing the motion object, i.e., motion image data with the motion object.
As shown in FIG. 1, an animation creating device 1 according to the present embodiment includes a pre-described animation image DB 11 and a pre-described animation image selecting section 12. The pre-described animation image DB 11 stores different types of pre-described animation image data, which become a prescribed form of target animation. The pre-described animation image selecting section 12 is provided to allow a user to select one of the different types of pre-described animation image data from the pre-described animation image DB 11.
Note that, the embodiment below describes the case where different types of pre-described animation image data are provided. However, the present invention is also applicable to only a single type of pre-described animation image data. In this case, the pre-described animation image selecting section 12 may be omitted.