Fast Display of Articulated Characters using Impostors

Rendering and animating numerous articulated characters interactively is challenging in computer graphics. Specific hardware systems may be needed. However, by using the temporal coherence characteristics of the articulated characters in an animation, changes from frame to frame remain small, and display rate can be improved using a software approach using impostors. The use of impostors to replace the actual geometry had been shown in many computer graphics system in the form of billboards but most likely for static objects. However, impostors can also be applied to the dynamic objects such as animated articulated characters to improve the display rate. Figure 1. Actual geometry in left and its impostor in right. Principle: The principle of the animated impostors is that the posture changes of an articulated character remain small from frame to frame. The human brain tends to reconstruct the missing data even only a few frames are seen. Thus, the motion of the articulated character still can be understood. By knowing this, rendering cost can be reduced by replacing the complex articulated character with an animated impostor. By Chow Shu Kam Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology Fast display of articulated characters using impostors