50 July 2000/Vol. 43, No.

7 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

 a a

To solve the problem of generating

realistic human motion, animation
software has to not only produce
realistic movement but provide full
control of the process to the animator.

Controlling Physics in
Realistic Character
Animation
Zoran Popović

For the last 10 years, computers have been highly involved process adds further difficulties. This
used with great success to produce realistic motion of dual goal of controlled realism motivated me (and
passive structures by simulating the physical laws of my advisor Andy Witkin, now at Pixar Animation
motion—something that would be very difficult to Studios) to devise the methodology described here.
BY PETER SUMANESENI AND DIRECTED BY BARBARA MONES, ANIMATION RESEARCH LABS,
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE & ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON)

do by hand. Examples include the simulation of col-

liding rigid bodies and of cloth motion. It would Reusable Character Motion Libraries
IMAGES FROM "MIRA AND THE WIND" (ANIMATED BY ANTHONY LAMPA AND LIT

seem that creating realistic character animation The prevalent use of keyframing and procedural
would not be significantly more difficult than com- methods in computer animation stems from the fact
puting the motion of cloth or other such passive that these methods put full control of the resulting
objects. As with passive-object simulations, a charac- motion in the hands and imagination of the anima-
ter’s motion needs to be consistent with the laws of tor. The burden of animation quality rests entirely
physics for an animation to appear realistic. But con- on the animator, much as puppeteers have full con-
sistency alone is not sufficient for generating realistic- trol over the movement of their marionettes by
looking animations. The character also produces pulling on specific strings. Highly skilled animators
forces that create locomotion. and special-effects wizards appreciate this low-level
Humans utilize their muscles in many ways in control, because it allows them to fully express their
order to walk or run, and only a small set of simu- artistry.
lated animations would look realistic (see Figure 1). Having so much control also makes it that much
To produce natural-looking motion, it’s not enough more difficult for the world’s less-talented animators
to have just physically correct motion; the intricacies to create animations. In fact, the task of appropriately
of the character’s muscles and bones and how they positioning a character in a specific pose at the right
pertain to motion have to be taken into account. Pro- time is arduous, even for the simplest animation.
viding the animator with the ability to control this Instead of incrementally setting keyframes for various
a a

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 Figure 1. Automatically generated human jump
(rendered by Peter Sumanaseni, University of Washington).

character poses, the unskilled animator would ide- the library to produce a seamless character anima-
ally like to be able to edit high-level motion con- tion. The use of such human-movement libraries
structs. For example, an animator might want to would make computer animation a much more
reposition footprints or simply specify that a move- accessible storytelling medium useful to a much
ment should be more energetic. Alternatively, the more diverse population of computer-content
animator might want to impose greater importance providers.
on balance while performing a movement, or change One of the most difficult problems in light of
a character’s behavior by specifying the walking sur- such extremely flexible libraries is how to maintain
face be significantly more slippery. the realism of the motion despite all the possible
The animator should also be able to access a changes in the motion specification. Although not
human-run library, instantiating a specific run by always needed, the realism requirement would
demanding realism and specifying the character enable even unskilled animators to create the
dimensions, foot placements, even the emotional motion of synthetic humans—arguably one of the
state of the runner. By limiting, say, the left knee’s greatest challenges in computer animation. Realistic
range of motion, the library would produce a limp- synthetic humans would be very useful in a number
ing run satisfying all previous requirements. The of areas:
animator should be able to specify the finer detail
constraints on bounce quality, air-time, and specific Education. Using desktop PCs, children could
arm poses (see the first sidebar). Finally, it should be learn from personal instructors that seem as real
possible to merge a collection of instantiated motion as the teachers in their classrooms.
sequences, including, say, human run, human jump, Entertainment. In digital filmmaking and video-
karate kicks, soccer ball kick, and tennis serve, from game design, creating realistic human characters

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 Human Run and Jump Libraries

Figure. Frames from the crossed footsteps, limp, and wide footsteps run and
from the diagonal, obstacle, unbalanced, and twist jump.

A s a proof of concept, I generated two libraries: human run

and human jump. The figure shows the original motion-cap-
ture sequence of a human run from which the motion library was
that the running character appears to be speed walking.
Short-legged limp run. To test the limits of character-model
modification, I shortened the shin of the right leg and fixed the left
constructed, as well as a selection of markedly different automati- knee DOF, as in the limp run. The output running sequence has an
cally generated animations and a range of jumps generated from a extreme limp, with the leg in the cast swinging more to the side
single human-jump-motion library. For input sequences, I used high- due to the shorter right leg.
detail (120Hz) motion-capture data. During the fitting stage, I used I created the broad-jump motion library to explore how far a
drastically different simplification approaches for the libraries to character could be simplified without losing the dynamic essence of
show the versatility of the physics-based framework. the jump. In order to demonstrate the power and flexibility of
All of these motion sequences would be difficult to create using these simplification tools, I used a drastically different simplification
existing motion-editing tools. While a number of constraints could approach from the one used in the human-run motions. I reduced
conceivably be introduced to enhance realism, for some sequences the upper body structure to a single mass point that moves with
they would require an overwhelming amount of work, on par with three prismatic muscles pushing off from the rest of the body.
creating a realistic motion sequence from scratch through keyfram- Since the legs move in unison during a broad jump, I also turned
ing. In contrast, my approach requires a minimal number of intu- them into a single leg. I turned the knee hinge joint into a prismatic
itive changes for each transformed sequence, including the joint, showing that even with this completely changed character
following human run motions: model, the dynamic properties of the broad jump are preserved.
Crossed footsteps. To force the character to twist at each step, The simplified character (“hopper”), which lacks angular joints and
crisscrossing its feet, I moved footprints to the opposite side of the has 10 DOFs, six of which are the global position and orientation
body. of the model, can perform the following jumps:
Limp run. To create the appearance of a leg in a cast, I removed Diagonal. I displaced the landing position to the side and constrained
the left knee DOF. In the final motion sequence, the character the torso orientation to point straight ahead. This change realigned
leans to the side and swings its right leg in a more dramatic fash- the push-off and anticipation stages in the direction of the jump.
ion, creating a realistic (albeit painful) limp run. Obstacle. To force the legs to be raised during the flight stage, I
Wide footsteps. To force the character to leap significantly far- raised the landing position and introduced a hurdle. As a result, the
ther to the side at each step, I repositioned the footprint mechani- character’s push-off is more vertical, and the legs tuck in during
cal constraints to be wider apart. Since each step then covers flight.
more distance, the overall resulting motion has leaps of smaller Unbalanced. I removed the final pose constraint that imposed
height, as in the figure. The appropriate change in the upper body the upright position. In the resulting sequence, the character never
orientation is apparent in the resulting motion. uses its muscles to stand up upon landing, since doing so requires
Moon run. To create a human-run sequence under lunar gravity, I extra energy. Instead of straightening up, the character tumbles
reduced the gravity constant to the gravity on the moon’s surface. forward, giving the appearance of poor landing balance.
The resulting run is slower and has much higher leaps appropriate Twist. To mandate a 90-degree turn, I introduced the torso-ori-
for the low-gravity environment. entation pose constraint at the end of the animation. The output
Neptune run. To see how the running sequence would adjust to motion shows the change in the anticipation and introduction of
an extreme gravitational field, I increased the Earth’s gravity ten- the body twist during flight. The landing also changes to accommo-
fold. The resulting flight phase of the run is so low to the ground date the sideways landing position. c

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM July 2000/Vol. 43, No. 7 53

 Figure 2. Outline of the motion-transformation process. The novel approach to the problem of
creating animations I describe here main-
tains a level of realism in light of all other
motion modifications. Instead of motion
synthesis, I approach such animations
through “motion transformation,” or the
adaptation of existing motion. For example,
instead of generating an animation from
scratch, I transform existing human-run
sequences by changing their parameters
until the resulting motion meets the needs
of the animation. A number of other com-
puter-animation researchers have also
adopted the motion-transformation
approach, which has arguably become the
Figure 3. Kinematic character simplification: most active research direction in computer
(a) elbows and spine abstracted away; (b) upper body animation [2, 3, 6, 12].
reduced to the center of mass; and (c) symmetric Any dynamically plausible motion, such
movement abstraction. as captured motion and physical simula-
tions, can be used as input to my transfor-
mation algorithm. The first step in the
algorithm is construction of a simplified
character model and the fitting of the
motion of the simplified model to the cap-
tured motion data. This fitted motion is a
physical spacetime-optimization solution
is perhaps the greatest open challenge. More including the body’s mass properties, pose, foot-
sophisticated models of human motion and print constraints, and muscles, as well as the
appearance are needed. motion property being optimized, called the
Human-computer interaction. The face any com- “objective function” [11] (see the second sidebar).
puter shows its user is impersonal. Realistic full- To edit an animation, the animator modifies the
bodied human “guides” would make computers constraints and physical parameters of the model
more accessible to a wider population. and other spacetime-optimization parameters,
Teleconferencing. By combining video with more including limb geometry, footprint positions,
sophisticated shape and motion information, tele- objective function, and gravity. From this altered
conferencing would obviate the need for using spacetime “parameterization,” the algorithm com-
single-viewpoint video, allowing participants putes a transformed motion sequence and maps the
more freedom of movement and a greater sense motion change of the simplified model back onto
of presence. Imagine, in the next two to five the original motion to produce the final animation
years, realistic synthetic avatars representing us in sequence.
the distributed digital world, changing the notion In addition to providing a methodology for ensur-
of teleconferencing as we’ve come to know it. ing realism of such motion, the spacetime-optimiza-
tion model is an intuitive tool for the high-level
Although people are generally quick at visually per- editing of motion sequences, including: foot place-
ceiving the subtleties of human motion in nature, our ment and timing; the kinematic structure of the char-
perceptual understanding of natural movement offers acter; the dynamic environment of the animation;
little help to an animator trying to generate such and the motion property being optimized by the ani-
motion. Moreover, synthesizing and analyzing the mation task. The algorithm’s ability to preserve
high-quality motion of dynamic 3D articulated char- dynamics of motion and the existence of a rich set of
acters has proven to be an extremely difficult problem. motion controls enables animators to create motion
The collective knowledge of biomechanics, control libraries from a single input motion sequence. Once
theory, robot-motion planning, and computer anima- the original motion is fitted onto the spacetime-opti-
tion indicates that the underlying processes governing mization model, the model can then be presented to
motion are complex and difficult to control. the animator as a tool for generating the movement

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that meets the specifications of the given animation developer, the actuated character is placed in the
they’re working on. dynamic simulation environment to produce the
final motion sequence.
Transforming the Motion Sequence Spacetime optimization does not use controllers
As in other motion-capture editing methods, my algo- or perform simulations. An animation problem is
rithm (presented in 1999) does not synthesize motion phrased as a large variational optimization, whose
from scratch. Instead, it transforms the input motion solution is the input motion-capture sequence.
sequence to satisfy the needs of the animation. Unfortunately, spacetime-optimization methods
Although its development was motivated by the gen- have not been shown to be feasible for computing
eral need to enable realistic high-level control of high- human motion over long periods of time because of
quality captured-motion sequences, the same the nonlinearity and parameter-space explosion. For
methods can be applied to the motion of arbitrary this reason, my approach first simplifies the charac-
sources of a realistic motion [8, 9]. ter model. The entire transformation process (see
At its core, the algorithm uses the spacetime-opti- Figure 2) involves four main stages:
mization formulation, which maintains the dynamic
integrity of motion and provides intuitive motion Character simplification. The tool developer creates
control. Before these results were available, dynamic an abstract character model containing the mini-
spacetime-optimization methods were used exclu- mal number of degrees of freedom (DOFs) neces-
sively for motion synthesis, rather than for motion sary to capture the essence of the input motion
transformation [7, 10]. while mapping input motion onto the simplified
Also worth noting is that spacetime optimization model.
is different from the robot-controller-simulation Spacetime motion fitting. The tool developer finds
approach to character animation [4, 5]. Although the spacetime-optimization problem whose solu-
both approaches generate realistic motion, robot- tion closely matches the simplified character
controller approaches do not solve directly for motion.
motion paths. Instead, they construct controllers Spacetime edit. The animator then adjusts space-
that generate forces at a character’s joints based on time motion parameters, introduces new pose
the state of the character’s dynamic properties. Once constraints, changes the character kinematics,
the controllers are generated by a robot-control defines the objective function, and more.
Turning Motion into a Spacetime-Optimization Problem

A “character” is an object performing motions of its own

accord. It has a finite number of kinematic DOFs and a finite
number of muscles. DOFs usually represent joint angles of the char-
constraints provide the external forces necessary to satisfy these
constraints. Other external forces, such as gravity and wind, may
also be required within the environment.
acter’s extremities; muscles exert forces on different parts of the Finally, the animator has to ensure the dynamic correctness of
body, thereby actuating locomotion. the motion by constraining the acceleration of each DOF. Intuitively,
The goal of motion synthesis is to find a character’s desired the formulation ensures that F=ma holds for all DOFs at all times,
motion. This “goal motion” is rarely specified uniquely; rather, the calling such constraints “dynamics constraints.” As long as these con-
animator looks for a motion that satisfies some set of storytelling straints are satisfied, the resulting motion is physically correct.
requirements. Generally, these requirements are represented Constraints determine a large portion of the motion specifica-
through constraints, external forces, and the objective function. tion. In the spacetime framework, the objective function provides
The requirements of a sequence animating a computer-generated the means to modify the quality of motion. Some examples of easily
character getting up from a chair might include the fact that the measured objective functions include energy consumption, static bal-
character is sitting in the chair at time t0 and standing up at final ance, and the amount of force exerted on the floor. Ideally, the ani-
time t1. The spacetime-optimization formulation refers to such mator also wants to control other qualities of motion like agility and
requirements as “pose constraints,” insisting the character use its even the character’s emotional state.
own muscles to satisfy these constraints. Motion defined this way maps straightforwardly onto a nonlin-
In addition to pose constraints, the environment imposes a num- early constrained optimization problem; the algorithm optimizes the
ber of “mechanical constraints” onto the body. For example, in objective function, ensuring that the pose and mechanical and dynam-
order to enforce the upright position of a human, the animator con- ics constraints are satisfied. This optimization process is a variational
strains both feet to the floor. The floor exerts forces onto the feet, calculus problem, since it solves for functions of time, instead of
ensuring they never penetrate the floor’s surface. All mechanical values. c

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM July 2000/Vol. 43, No. 7 55

 Figure 4. Full and simplified characters for human run and broad jump.

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Motion reconstruction. The algorithm remaps the tle influence on motion.
change in motion introduced by the spacetime Node subtree removal. In some cases of high-energy
edit onto the original motion to produce the final motion, the entire subtree of the character hierar-
animation. chy can be replaced with a single object, usually a
mass point with three translational DOFs. For
Once the spacetime model is computed, it can be example, the upper body of a human character
reused to generate a wide range of animations. The can be reduced to a mass point for various jump-
spacetime-edit and motion-reconstruction stages ing-motion sequences in which the upper body
take much less time to compute than the first two “catapults” in the direction of the jump.
stages, enabling the computation of transformed Symmetric movement. Broad-jump motions contain
motion sequences at near-interactive speeds. inherent symmetry, as both legs move in unison.
Instead of solving spacetime-constraint optimiza- Thus, the simplification process abstracts both
tions on the full character, the tool developer first legs into one, turning the character into a
constructs a simplified character model the algo- monopode, as if it were a pogo stick.
rithm then uses for all spacetime optimizations (see
Figure 3). Simplified models capture the minimum Once the character model is simplified, the origi-
amount of structure necessary for the input motion nal motion can be mapped onto it. However, before
task, thus capturing the essence of the input motion. the animator can edit the motion with spacetime
Subsequent motion transformations modify this constraints, the tool developer creates not only
abstract representation while preserving the specific dynamically correct but realistic motion of the sim-
feel and uniqueness of the original motion. The sim- plified model by identifying the spacetime-optimiza-
plification process draws from ideas in biomechanics tion problem whose solution comes very close to the
research [1]. One of them, abstractly speaking, is original motion.
that highly dynamic natural motion is created by The motion-transformation framework uses an
“throwing the mass around,” or changing the relative abstract representation of muscles to apply forces
position of body mass. The result is that a human directly onto DOFs, much like robotic servo-motors
arm with more than 10 DOFs can be represented by positioned at joints apply forces on robotic limbs.
a rigid object with only three shoulder DOFs with- The algorithm places these muscles at each character
out losing much of its “mass displacement ability.” DOF, ensuring the minimum set of muscles to
Simplification of body parts also depends on the achieve the full range of character motion.
type of input motion. For example, although simpli- Most of the spacetime constraints fall out of the
fying an arm may work well for the human-run input motion. Therefore, in a run or walk sequence,
motion, the same simplification would not be useful the library creator specifies mechanical point con-
for representing, say, the ball-throwing motion. straints at every moment the foot is in contact with
In the motion libraries I’ve created so far, the sim- the floor. Similarly, a leg-kick animation defines a
plification process reduces the number of kinematic pose constraint at the time the leg strikes the target.
DOFs, as well as muscle DOFs, by a factor of two to An animator can also introduce additional con-
five (see Figure 4). Since each DOF is represented by straints to add control during motion editing. For
hundreds of unknown coefficients during the opti- example, the animator might introduce a hurdle
mization process, simplification reduces the size of obstacle into the human-jump-motion environ-
the optimization by as many as 1,000 unknowns. ment, forcing the character to, say, clear a certain
More important, a character with fewer DOFs also height during flight.
creates constraints with significantly smaller nonlin- With the spacetime-optimization problem
earities. In practice, the optimization has no conver- defined appropriately, the animator can edit the
gence problems with the simplified character intuitive “control knobs” of the spacetime-optimiza-
models, and does not converge with the full-charac- tion formulation to produce a nearly inexhaustible
ter model. number of different realistic motion sequences.
Character simplification is performed manually
by the animator applying three basic principles: Spacetime Edits
A spacetime-optimization formulation provides
DOF removal. Some body parts are fused together powerful and intuitive control of many aspects of the
by removing the DOFs linking them. Elbow and dynamic animation: pose and environment con-
wrist DOFs are usually removed for running and straints, explicit kinematic and dynamic properties
walking motion sequences in which they have lit- of the character, and the objective function.

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM July 2000/Vol. 43, No. 7 57

 By changing existing constraints, the animator for dynamics. The powerful high-level controls of
can rearrange foot placements in both space and the spacetime formulation are especially appealing,
time. For example, a human-run sequence can be because they allow the animator to apply intuitive
changed into a zig-zag run on an uphill slope by modifications to the input motion sequence. This
moving the floor-contact constraints further apart intuitive control makes the algorithm particularly
while progressively elevating them. The constraint amenable to the motion-library paradigm.
timing can also be changed; an example involves However, three important areas in realistic char-
extending the floor-contact-time duration of one leg acter animation still need to be addressed: integrat-
to create an animation in which the character ing and applying multiple realistic motion sequences
appears to favor one leg. The animator can also into a single continuous character animation; retar-
introduce new obstacles along the running path, geting motion to different characters while preserv-
producing new constraints that might require legs to ing realism; and developing an intuitive interface to
clear a specified height during the flight phase of the the motion-data libraries. Eventually, research in
run. It would also be possible to alter the environ- these areas would allow the reusable-motion para-
ment of the run by changing the gravity constant, digm to find its way not only into film and video
producing a human-run sequence on, say, the games, but into every home PC. It won’t be long
moon’s surface. before every PC has sufficient 3D rendering and
Changes can also be made on the character model computing resources to let anyone use computer
itself. For example, the animator can change the animation as an expressive medium, much as Web
limb dimensions or their mass distribution charac- pages have emerged as a ubiquitous form of expres-
teristics and observe the motion’s resulting dynamic sion today. Reusable motion is a crucial concept
change. The animator can remove body parts, enabling practically any animator, no matter how
restrict various DOFs to specific ranges, and remove skilled, to become an expressive storyteller. c
DOFs altogether, effectively placing certain body
parts in a cast; for example, different injured-run References
sequences would result from shortening a leg, mak- 1. Blickhan, R. and Full, R. Similarity in multilegged locomotion:
Bouncing like a monopode. J. Comp. Physiol. 173 (1993), 509–517.
ing one leg heavier than the other, reducing the 2. Bruderlin, A. and Williams, L. Motion signal processing. In Proceed-
range of motion for the knee DOF, or removing the ings of SIGGRAPH’95 (Los Angeles, Aug.). Addison Wesley, 1995,
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affect the look of transformed motion; for example, of the 1997 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, M. Cohen and D.
if the force output of the muscles is limited, the Zeltzer, Eds. (Apr.). ACM SIGGRAPH, 1997, 139–148.
4. Hodgins, J. Animating human motion. Scientif. Amer. 278, 3 (Mar.
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of the motion by adding additional appropriately 6. Lee, J. and Shin, S.-Y. A hierarchical approach to interactive motion
weighted objective components; for example, a editing for human-like figures. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’99 (Los
Angeles, Calif., Aug.). Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, 39–48.
softer-looking run would result from an objective 7. Liu, Z., Gortler, S., and Cohen, M. Hierarchical spacetime control. In
component minimizing floor-impact forces. Alter- Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’94 (Orlando, Fla., July). ACM Press, New
York, 1994, 35–42.
natively, the run can be made to look more stable 8. Popović, Z. Motion Transformation by Physically Based Spacetime Opti-
by including a measure of balance in the objective mization. Ph.D. thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, 1999.
component. 9. Popović, Z. and Witkin, A. Physically based motion transformation. In
Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’99 (Los Angeles, Aug.). Addison Wesley
After each edit, the algorithm re-solves the space- Longman, 1999, 11–20.
time-optimization problem and produces a new 10. Rose, C., Guenter, B., Bodenheimer, B., and Cohen, M. Efficient gen-
transformed animation. Since the optimization start- eration of motion transitions using spacetime constraints. In Proceed-
ings of SIGGRAPH’96 (New Orleans, Aug.). Addison Wesley, 1996,
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utes to converge, spacetime optimizations during the
editing process take less than two minutes. Zoran Popović (zoran@cs.washington.edu) is an assistant
professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Conclusion at the University of Washington in Seattle.
This research represents the first solution of the
problem of editing captured motion that accounts © 2000 ACM 0002-0782/00/0700 $5.00

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