Animated Pathfinder

Share your Work

asimes

in Share your Work • 1 years ago

This is a sketch I wrote to see if using Processing as a tool for developing a real walking robot was possible. I still need to make more accurate gravity at some point (the lowest vertex is always just moved to ground level at the moment, there is no mass involved).

http://alexsimes.com/AnimatedPathFinder/

Has anyone ever tried doing accurate dynamic character locomotion in Processing? (Character movement that is not based on key frames but instead on AI decisions). This one at the moment at least avoids randomly placed obstacles but his animation movements are not matching this path completely correctly.

On a side note, this character was made with matrices and beginShape() / endShape(CLOSE). It was madness to make him but his geometry doesn't break when he moves and he can be given euler angles to move his limbs by some amount of degrees.

Replies(9)

jbum

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

Very cool stuff!

To answer your question, I've done simple spring/mass physics-based animated creatures similar to SodaPlay.com, but haven't tried combining that with AI.

amnon.owed

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

Really interesting!

It's the first 3D character animation I've seen in Processing. I know people have asked about it in the past.

Loren Schmidt has done some creature walks which can be found here. And there's Springs World 3D.

But again, character animation like this is a primer afaik, so kudos for creating it.

If you could turn it into a library or open-source sketch at some point, I think it would be a great addition.

asimes

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

@amnon.owed I actually have never made a library before. The code for the character geometry is very long and I would imagine unintuitive for other people to work with. The only part that is straightforward are the euler angles to move the limbs but modifying the matrices that make up the character would be a nightmare for most people even if they understood how matrices work (I had to draw multiple diagrams and lists of vertices to know what I was working with when I made him).

I built him in a way that I could easily export him into Maya (I have Processing export a Mel script). I would imagine that setting up a library for translation from a 3D modeling program to something Processing can render would be better for other people to use.

Otherwise I still have a sketch where he is just a skeleton of parented vertices (although still controlled with matrices) controlled by euler angles. Maybe that would be more useful as people could just parent their own geometry to the vertices to make a humanoid character.

asimes

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

Also those Loren Schmidt creatures are awesome, thanks.

mbraendle

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

Impressive!

Wish we had a 3D rendering of our dynamic library maps (click on signpost button to display path to marked object, or type n to display the path net), so that a path finding sequence could be animated ...

amnon.owed

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

I think a skeleton sketch might indeed be something useful to share with the community.

All of this is also interesting in quite another context, namely: kinect. I've got some unfinished in-progress code lying around using Toxiclibs to build a 'character' around the dynamic skeleton points generated by the kinect.

asimes

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

I've never looked into the process of making a library. Do I contact someone through this website if I were to do it and then make it? Would I just make it and then post it somewhere? I don't really use libraries myself beyond openCV.

quarks

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

The character animation is excellent.

I've never looked into the process of making a library.

As to creating a library then you might start your research here if you are interested.

Do I contact someone through this website if I were to do it and then make it?

No you can just make it, unless you want collaborators.

Would I just make it and then post it somewhere?

Yes - but if you want it to be listed on the Processing website you must meet the Processing guidlines (see above link)

Realistically you would need to be or become familiar with the Eclipse IDE.

ignivome

Re: Animated Pathfinder

1 years ago

I Love it!

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