This paper has sought to discern the amount of artistic control afforded by the existing methods of articulated figure animation. It has also explained an implementation of an animation program that uses inverse kinematics and direct manipulation to allow the user to interactively position an articulated figure. This method allows the user to control the figure position precisely while eliminating a large number of intermediate joint positioning tasks.
This type of figure positioning can be extended to provide a motion sculpting interface that allows the animator to quickly produce motions without resorting to pure physical simulation or motion capture.
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