程序式動畫是一種根據使用者所提供的高階運動參數，自動產生動畫的方法。藉著高階的運動參數，程序式動畫比運動擷取資料有著更高的彈性。使用者可透過調整參數，輕易地讓動畫滿足情境上所需的限制。但如何調整適當的運動參數以產生擬真的動畫仍屬不易，因此程序式動畫常有在視覺上觀感不自然的問題。本研究的目標是，將運動擷取資料擬真的要素，帶到程序式動畫之中，以改進程序式動畫的品質。我們將問題定義成一個最佳化問題：給定一段運動擷取資料，系統該如何調整程序式動畫之參數，使得程序式動畫與運動擷取資料的差距盡可能地縮小？我們的系統可以參考一段運動擷取資料，以最佳化演算法，自動調整程序式動畫的參數，搜尋能產生出與運動擷取資料最為相似的運動參數。為了進一步讓產生之動畫符合環境的限制需求，多組最佳化過後的運動參數可以再透過內插，重新產生出一組符合限制需求的運動參數。實驗結果顯示，我們的方法不但使程序式動畫得以保留原來彈性的優點，也改善了程序式動畫常有的視覺觀感不自然的缺點。 / Procedural animation provides a way for a user to generate animation according to the high-level motion parameters that the user supplies. With the high-level motion parameters, procedural animation has the flexibility of generating animation accommodating the requested constraints in a scenario. However, tuning parameters to generate realistic animations usually is a difficult task. Therefore, animations produced with this approach often have the drawback of unrealistic-looking. Our goal is to improve the quality of procedural animation by bringing the naturalness of motion capture data into procedural animation. We model our problem as an optimization problem: given a motion captured clip, how does the system tune the motion parameters in an animation procedure to minimize the difference between animations produced by a procedure and captured in a motion clip? Our proposed system takes a motion captured clip as a reference and tunes the motion parameters of the animation procedure with an optimization algorithm. In order to generate animation satisfying environmental constraints, multiple optimized motion parameters can be interpolated to create a new set of motion parameters which can also satisfy the constraints. Our experimental results show that our method not only retains the flexibility of procedural animation, but also enhances the quality of procedural animation.

在這個研究中，我們嘗試將節奏的要素（速度、誇張度與時間調配）參數化，以產生能控制特定風格之人物角色的動畫。角色動作風格化的生成及控制是藉由一個層級式的動畫控制系統RhyCAP (Rhythmic Character Animation Playacting system), 透過一個節奏動作控制（Rhythmic Motion Control, RMC) 的方法來實現。RMC是基於傳統動畫的原則，設計參數化的動作指令，來產生生動並具有說服力的角色動作。此外，RMC也提供了運動行為的模型來控制角色動畫的演出。藉由RhyCAP系統所提供的高階控制介面，即使是沒有經過專業傳統動畫技巧訓練的使用者，也能夠創作出戲劇性的中國舞獅動畫。 / In this research, we attempt to parameterize the rhythmic factors (tempo, exaggeration and timing) into the generation of controllable stylistic character animation. The stylized character motions are generated by a hierarchical animation control system, RhyCAP (Rhythmic Character Animation Playacting system) and realized through an RMC (Rhythmic Motion Control) scheme. The RMC scheme can generate convincible and expressive character motions from versatile action commands with the rhythmic parameters defined according to the principles of traditional animation. Besides, RMC also provide controllable behavior models to enact the characters. By using the high-level control interface of the RhyCAP system, the user is able to create a dramatic Chinese Lion Dance animation intuitively even though he may not be professionally trained with traditional animation skills.

人或擬人生物佔眾多動畫主題的大部份，而要使人物動畫看起來栩栩如生，除了適當的臉部表情外，能夠傳達人物情感的肢體動作更是不可或缺。本研究的目標在於以電腦程序產生帶有情緒成份之人物肢體動畫。此目標包含兩個子目標：第一、設計以人類肢體動作為目標的參數化程序，以提高程序之重用性及泛用性，降低製作程序式動畫的成本，並製作出以關鍵格為基礎之人物動畫；第二、將我們製作的動畫加入風格，並以心理學實驗驗證人物的動作和情緒的關聯。我們的實驗先將風格套用於走路動作上，來證明我們操弄風格的方法符合大眾的認知。再者，我們針對走路動作嘗試以實驗找出風格和情緒的對映，再將此對映關係套用到具特定情緒意涵的動作上，以證明這些對映有助於情緒的表達。 / Human or human-like creatures are the main subjects of computer animations. In addition to facial expression, body gestures and motions are also indispensi-ble components for realistic character animation. The goal of this research is to create emotional character animation with computer procedures. This goal may contain two subgoals: first, we aim to design parameterizable animation proce-dures for human body motions in order to reduce the cost of producing key-frame based character animations with improved generality and reusability; second, we incorporate style into procedural animation and validate the relation model between emotion and motion with psychology experiments. We first ap-plied different styles into the walking motion and conducted experiments to see if the participants can agree with the way that we manipulate the style parame-ters. Furthermore, for the walking motion, we conduct experiments to find the mapping from the emotion parameters to the style parameters. Then we applied this mapping to emotion-specific motions to see if the animations perceived by the users can be further enhanced.