Animation generation systems and methods

An animation generation method for generating an avatar in a virtual space, wherein the avatar has a set of skeletons and a skin attached to the set of skeletons, and the set of skeletons has a plurality of movable nodes, and the movable nodes are manipulated so that a motion of the skin is induced;

• comprising:
• moving a position mark to at least one first real position in a real space;
• moving at least one control mark to at least one second real position in the real space;
• capturing the images of the real space;
• identifying the first real position and the second real position from the images of the real space;
• converting the first real position into a first virtual position where the avatar is in the virtual space;
• converting the second real position into a second virtual position where one of the movable nodes of the avatar is in the virtual space, wherein the relative motions between the virtual control position and the first virtual position make the avatar perform a series of successive motions in the virtual space,
• drawing the one of images of the real space as a background, and drawing a designated object on the first virtual position onto the background to generate an Augmented Reality (AR) animation,
• reading out skin information in respect of the skin, and skeleton information in respect of a set of template skeletons, wherein the skin information is composed of data of a plurality of mesh vertices, and the skeleton information comprises geometric data of each bone of the set of template skeletons and the linkage relationship between the bones of the set of template skeletons;
• analyzing the skin information to obtain a plurality of appearance features and a plurality of trunk features of the skin;
• adjusting the size of the set of template skeletons according to the appearance features to generate the set of skeletons of the avatar, and fitting the set of skeletons to the appearance features;
• fitting the set of skeletons to the trunk features of the skin;
• calculating an envelope range of a bone of the set of skeletons according to a plurality of mesh vertices in proximity to the bone;
• calculating the weight of a mesh vertex of the skin information relative to a bone according the envelope range, wherein the weight of the mesh vertex indicates how the mesh vertex is affected by the movement of the bone when the bone is moving;
• and
• outputting the avatar to the arithmetic unit, wherein the outputted avatar comprises data in relation to the skin, the set of skeletons and the relationships therebetween.

A multi-view animation generation system, comprising:

• at least one mark which is moved by users to at least one first real position in a real space;
• an arithmetic unit, coupled to at least two video capturing units,
• wherein the at least two video capturing units capturing image streams of the real space and transmitting the image stream to the arithmetic unit, and the arithmetic unit identifying at least two first real positions from the images of the real space, and converting the at least two real positions into at least two virtual positions in virtual space;
• a multi-view animation synthesizing unit, coupled to the arithmetic unit, for drawing one of the images captured by the video capturing unit as a background;
• drawing a virtual model corresponding to the mark on one of the at least two virtual positions onto the background;
• synthesizing the background and the virtual model to generate an animation;
• and transmitting the animation to the multi-view display unit,
• an avatar generation module, comprising:
• a readout unit for reading out skin information in respect of a skin of an avatar, and skeleton information in respect of a set of template skeletons of the avatar, wherein the skin information is composed of data of a plurality of mesh vertices, and the skeleton information comprises geometric data of each bone of the set of template skeletons and the linkage relationship between bones of the set of template skeletons;
• an analyzing unit for analyzing the skin information to obtain a plurality of appearance features and a plurality of trunk features of the skin;
• a rough fitting unit for adjusting the size of the set of template skeletons according to the appearance features to generate the set of skeletons of the avatar, and fitting the set of skeletons to the appearance features;
• a precise fitting unit for fitting the set of skeletons to the trunk features of the skin;
• an envelope range calculating unit for calculating an envelope range of a bone of the set of skeletons according to a plurality of mesh vertices in proximity to the bone;
• a mesh vertices weight calculating unit for calculating the weight of a mesh vertex of the skin information relative to a bone according the envelope range, wherein the weight of the mesh vertex indicates how the mesh vertex is affected by the movement of the bone when the bone is moving;
• an output unit for outputting the avatar to the arithmetic unit, wherein the outputted avatar comprises data in relation to the skin, the set of skeletons and the relationships therebetween.

A multi-view video generation method for synthesizing a multi-view video and drawing a virtual model in the multi-view video, comprising:

• placing a mark on at least one real position in a real space;
• capturing the images of the real space by using at least two video capturing units;
• identifying at least two real positions from the images of the real space;
• converting the at least two real positions into at least two virtual positions in a virtual space;
• and
• synthesizing a multi-view video, comprising:
• drawing one of the images captured by the video capturing unit as a background;
• drawing a virtual model corresponding to the mark on one of the at least two virtual positions onto the background to form a result video;
• and
• synthesizing the background and the virtual model by using known multi-view synthesizing methods to generate a multi-view video, and
• reading out skin information in respect of a skin of an avatar, and skeleton information in respect of a set of template skeletons of the avatar, wherein the skin information is composed of data of a plurality of mesh vertices, and the skeleton information comprises geometric data of each bone of the set of template skeletons and the linkage relationship between the bones of the set of template skeletons;
• analyzing the skin information to obtain a plurality of appearance features and a plurality of trunk features of the skin;
• adjusting the size of the set of template skeletons according to the appearance features to generate the set of skeletons of the avatar, and fitting the set of skeletons to the appearance features;
• fitting the set of skeletons to the trunk features of the skin;
• calculating an envelope range of a bone of the set of skeletons according to a plurality of mesh vertices in proximity to the bone;
• calculating the weight of a mesh vertex of the skin information relative to a bone according the envelope range, wherein the weight of the mesh vertex indicates how the mesh vertex is affected by the movement of the bone when the bone is moving;
• and
• outputting the avatar to the arithmetic unit, wherein the outputted avatar comprises data in relation to the skin, the set of skeletons and the relationships therebetween.