There’s two ways to have a computer generated character walk:
1) You animate it walking, doign whatever you want
2) You *simulate* it walking, factoring in physics and anatomy and whatnot
For movies and whatnot, #1 gets the job done. #2 is far, far harder, and is prone to fail… but if you can pull it off, the results can be impressive.
Flexible Muscle-Based Locomotion for Bipedal Creatures
We present a muscle-based control method for simulated bipeds in which both the muscle routing and control parameters are optimized. This yields a generic locomotion control method that supports a variety of bipedal creatures. All actuation forces are the result of 3D simulated muscles, and a model of neural delay is included for all feedback paths. As a result, our controllers generate torque patterns that incorporate biomechanical constraints. The synthesized controllers find different gaits based on target speed, can cope with uneven terrain and external perturbations, and can steer to target directions.
[vimeo 79098420]