Today I came across a small british company who’ve developed a new mechanism for motion capture using no actors and no traditional animation techniques.

The work is based on research done by Oxford University and uses Artificial Intelligence combined with real-time physics simulation to render scenes dynamically.

Instead of defining key-frames through which a computer animated character would normally pass, they define the physics of the scene (which surfaces are hard, movable, springy etc.) and then apply forces to the scene elements. For example, a human (complete with skeleton, bones and joints) would be hit in the head from the front. The system, named “Endorphin” will then react to that force. This is where the AI kicks in. They human model is instructed to try and stay on it’s feet when the force is applied. They’ve already trained the model through a neural network and backward propagation, how to do that (i.e. move it’s feet in the appropriate manner). The result is amazing animations which are dynamic and slightly different each time. It also puts the animator in a role of “director” as opposed to orchestrator as they’re telling the models what to do vs positioning them. Check it out at http://www.NaturalMotion.com. Make sure to checkout the demo movie clips of the two stick figures tackling one another.