Lattice-Based Skinning and Deformation for Real-Time Skeleton-Driven Animation

In this paper, we present an efficient framework to deform polygonal models for skeleton-driven animation. Standard solutions of skeleton-driven animation, such as linear blend skinning, require intensive artist intervention and focus on primary deformations. The proposed approach can generate both low- and high-frequency surface motions such as muscle deformation and vibrations with little user intervention. Given a surface mesh, we construct a lattice of cubic cells embracing the mesh and we apply lattice-based smooth skinning to drive the surface primary deformation with volume preservation. Lattice shape matching with dynamic particles, in the meantime, is utilized for secondary deformations. Due to the highly parallel lattice structure, the proposed method is liable to GPU computation. Our results show that it is adequate to vividly real-time animation.