CS 8113F / 4803C
Anna Shleyfman
April 13, 1998

An important problem faced by animators using simulations is the repetitiveness of the simulated motion. In the real world, motion of humans and animals is not fully repetitive, whereas, every step of the simulated runner is identical to the others. This cyclical pattern in the runner's motion is unnatural. In my project I would like to modify the runner's motion with the addition of noise to make it appear less repetitive. In this research I would like to explore the influence on runner's behavior of the two different kinds of noise: the sine-wave noise and white noise.

White noise is a signal whose Fourier transform is a straight line. The only control over this type of noise available is the change in magnitude of the signal and band limiting. Another type of noise that I will be exploring is sinusoidal. It can be controlled through the change in amplitude, frequency, and phase (Shlick, 1995)*.

The addition of noise will influence the runner's motion via rotations. This task is complex, since I need to make sure that noise is added in the correct direction, so that parts of the runner's body will not collide with each other, and the runner will not fall down. For example, if the rotation is added to the elbow incorrectly, the runner's hand will collide with his body. This behavior is undesirable.

The goal of this research is to obtain variations in runner's behavior to make it look less repetitive and more realistic. I will also try to explore the new characteristics of the movement resulting from addition of different kinds of noise and its influence on runner's behavior. I will investigate whether there exists the dependency between the intensities of noise to be added and the runner's moods and running styles. For example some type of noise may change the arm swing, which may look like the runner is tired.  

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* (Shlick 1995) Christophe Shlick. Wave Generators for Computer Graphics, 1995