Re: looking for *lots* of dance animations

Yacov Sharir (sharir@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Tue, 07 Apr 1998 08:45:45 -0600 (CST)

Hi there,

On my way to create a work for the interface I have created just about
fifty animations.

The work will be first performed by the Sharir Dance Company on May 1-3 at
the University of Texas at Austin campus B Iden Pain Theatre. Following
this event I will be willing to have you use the animations for your
research.

Some of the prasses are composed in Life Forms and others in Poser II. Let
me know in what format you want the phrases posted?

In regard to motion capture. we have developed an alternative interactive
video motion tracking system. At this time it activates only quick time
movies trigerd by the facial gestures or be dancers movement. However, it
is very sensitive and works very well.

Best, Yacov Sharir

>Hi everyone,
>
>Does anyone know where i can find gobs of LifeForms(TM) animations? We're
>working on software that "learns" what particular styles of dance
>look like and then tries to bridge two key frames with dance that matches
>the "genre" it's been trained on. In order to train
>the computer we need a large corpus of human movement that is an honest
>and (approximately) complete representation of how the body moves. We've
>already built a small corpus of ballet using the short sequences from
>LifeForms'
>PowerMoves CD that we purchased last semester. Although the CD has been
>extremely helpful in the beginning stages of the project it is still too
>small to meet our needs. For instance, even after training on every
>sequence we could get our hands on, there are still some "lock-states" the
>joints can enter. These lock-states are particular joint orientations the
>computer has never seen examples of how to exit.
>
>Right now, we're heavily using LifeForms and so are requesting animations in
>that format, but would also appreciate suggestions about other animation
>alternatives that are out there. Ideally, we would love to set up a motion
>capture system of some sort and let live dancers train the algorithms. We
>just
>don't know how affordable, how practical, and how reliable these motion
>capture
>systems are...
>
>Any pointers to existing animation archives or people that might be
>willing to contribute their own work to the cause would be greatly
>appreciated. Thanks!
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>josh stuart
>professional research assistant
>dr. elizabeth bradley's lab
>department of computer science
>university of colorado
>stuartj@cs.colorado.edu
>(303) 492-8425
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++