Interactive motion synthesis with optimal blending

In this paper, we propose an interactive motion synthesis technique that synthesizes a continuous motion sequence from given elementary motions. A user can either specify the execution timings of motions, or execute motions in a sequence with automatically determined execution timings. Our method is based on a previous approach that determined the appropriate synthesis method and blending range for each pair of sequential motions, while considering the constraints between the foot and ground in the elementary motions to prevent foot sliding. However, using only the foot-ground constraints to determine the blending range may generate unnatural motions such as non-smooth, too fast, or too slow transitions. Moreover, simple motion blending with a regular weight function can generate unnatural motions. To solve these problems, we have introduced an optimal blending range and a weight function, which are determined for each blending segment for the upper and lower body. We also introduced extensions for applying this method to interactive character control. We have successfully applied our method to both animation generation and interactive character control.