PROCEDURAL ANIMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION FOR HUMANOID GAME AGENTS

Abstract

This article analyzes inverse kinematics algorithms and demonstrates the application of the chosen algorithm to the Unity game engine. It has been found that Unity inverse kinematics solvers do not offer functionality necessary to apply anatomically correct animation to a humanoid agent. A few inverse kinematics algorithms were chosen for comparison, such as Cyclic Coordinate Descent, FABRIK and triangulation; due to the support of multiple end effectors and possible optimizations, FABRIK was chosen to be implemented in the “FABRIK IK” solver. After comparing the functionality of “FABRIK IK” to Unity’s “Two Bone IK” and “Chain IK” solvers, it was found that “FABRIK IK” has more built-in functionality than “Two Bone IK” and “Chain IK” in the analyzed areas. The measurement of framerate has shown that the application of either solver has not posed a significant difference in performance on Unity (the difference in performance ranges from –8.29% to 5.89%). The visual demonstration that shows the application of “FABRIK IK” demonstrates an anatomically sound and accurate walking cycle, especially compared to “Chain IK”; the accuracy of the animation is comparable to “Two Bone IK”.