[ODE] ode & dynamic skeletal animationsystem

[Dietmar Suoch]

hi,

i'm currently working on a prototyp for my diploma thesis.
i made a realtime skeletal character animation system and
now i would like to influence the bones and therefore the
played animations. (let it be dynamic ;)

so i thought about a physics engine/API, because bones are actually
joints.
sounds a bit like ragdoll physics, but it's a different approach.
rag doll physics apply to the character after death and replaces so
called death-animations.

i'd like to let forces or params influence the animations so
they do not look the same all the time they are played.
i do not necessarily need to influence anims all the time,
only under certain circumstances (explosions, wind from any direction,
areas with lower/higher gravity, etc.).

how could i do this?
i think i would need motion mixing (mixing the currently played
animation with the calculated bone-positions, of course with
a kind of weighting factor).

should gravity be 0 and should only integrate about specific
time steps and applyspecific forces?

any other ideas or comments?

you're welcome, thanks,
didi

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student
fh-hagenberg
media technology & design
AUSTRIA / EUROPE