THE MASKLE: AUTOMATIC WEIGHTING FOR FACIAL ANIMATION - An Automated Approach the Problem of Facial Weighting for Animation

Alun Evans, Marco Romeo, Marcelo Dematei, Josep Blat

2009

Abstract

Facial animation of 3D characters is frequently a time-consuming and repetitive process that involves either skeleton-rigging or pose-setting for morph targets. A major issue of concern is the necessity to repeat similar tasks for different models, re-creating the same animation system for several faces. Thus there is a need for reusable methods and tools that allow the introduction of automation into these processes. In this paper we present such a method to assist in the process of facial rigging: the Maskle. Based upon the standard bone-weight linear skinning animation technique, the desired distribution of vertex-movement weights for facial animation is pre-programmed into a low-resolution, generic facial mask. This mask, or ‘Maskle’, is then semi-automatically overlaid onto a newly created face model, before the animation-weight distribution is automatically transferred from the Maskle to the model. The result is a weight-painted model, created semi-automatically, and available for the artist to use for animation. We present results comparing Maskle-weighted faces to those weighted manually by an artist, which were treated as the gold standard. The results show that the Maskle is capable of automatically weight-painting a face to within 1.58% of a manually weighted face, with a maximum error of 3.82%. Comparison with standard professional automatic weighting algorithms shows that the Maskle is over three times more accurate.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Evans A., Romeo M., Dematei M. and Blat J. (2009). THE MASKLE: AUTOMATIC WEIGHTING FOR FACIAL ANIMATION - An Automated Approach the Problem of Facial Weighting for Animation . In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2009) ISBN 978-989-8111-67-8, pages 233-240. DOI: 10.5220/0001753602330240


in Bibtex Style

@conference{grapp09,
author={Alun Evans and Marco Romeo and Marcelo Dematei and Josep Blat},
title={THE MASKLE: AUTOMATIC WEIGHTING FOR FACIAL ANIMATION - An Automated Approach the Problem of Facial Weighting for Animation},
booktitle={Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2009)},
year={2009},
pages={233-240},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001753602330240},
isbn={978-989-8111-67-8},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 1: GRAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2009)
TI - THE MASKLE: AUTOMATIC WEIGHTING FOR FACIAL ANIMATION - An Automated Approach the Problem of Facial Weighting for Animation
SN - 978-989-8111-67-8
AU - Evans A.
AU - Romeo M.
AU - Dematei M.
AU - Blat J.
PY - 2009
SP - 233
EP - 240
DO - 10.5220/0001753602330240