Character Skin Deformation: A Survey

Skin deformation plays a very important role in creating realistic character animation. A lot of research efforts have been devoted to the development of skin deformation techniques. The paper provides a survey of various techniques and classify them into three major categories; surface-based, volume-based and curve-based techniques. Surface based techniques are divided into purely geometric and physics-based. Volume-based techniques are grouped into purely geometric, anatomy based, and physics-based. Curve-based techniques are classified as free form deformation, purely geometric sweep deformation, cross section method; physics based sweep deformation, static curve-based skin deformation, and dynamic curve-based skin deformation. For each group, a representative technique is introduced. The strengths and weaknesses of each technique are analysed. Finally, some future research directions are discussed.