An authoring tool for generating shadow play animations with motion planning techniques

Abstract

Shadow play is a Chinese art that has not yet transformed into a digital form. In this work, we attempt to develop an authoring tool to generate shadow play animations according to user`s high-level inputs by utilizing motion planning algorithms. The motion of a character in a shadow play show usually consists of intended primary motion and reactive secondary motion. We propose to use the RRT-Connect algorithm to generate primary motions and design two methods to facilitate the generation of secondary motions. For the character`s upper body, we try to bias the search in the planner to prefer some motion pattern. For the lower body of the character, we modify its motion path by a simple pendulum model and a collision-avoidance correction mechanism in a post-processing step. Through several illustrative examples, we have shown that we are able to generate realistic compliant motions for a character in a shadow play animation.