Stefano Nuvoli, Nico Pietroni, Riccardo Scateni, Paolo Cignoni, Marco Tarini
SIGGRAPH Asia 2022
We propose a novel technique to compose new 3D animated models, such as videogame characters, by combining pieces from existing ones. Our method works on production-ready rigged, skinned, and animated 3D models to reassemble new ones. We exploit mix-and-match operations on the skeletons to trigger the automatic creation of a new mesh, linked to the new skeleton by a set of skinning weights and complete with a set of animations. The resulting model preserves the quality of the input meshings (which can be quad-dominant and semi-regular), skinning weights (inducing believable deformation), and animations, featuring coherent movements of the new skeleton.
Our method enables content creators to reuse valuable, carefully designed assets by assembling new ready-to-use characters while preserving most of the hand-crafted subtleties of models authored by digital artists. As shown in the accompanying video, it allows for drastically cutting the time needed to obtain the final result.
DOI: 10.1145/3550454.3555503 ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia) 2022
BibTex
@article{10.1145/3550454.3555503,
author = {Nuvoli, Stefano and Pietroni, Nico and Cignoni, Paolo and Scateni, Riccardo and Tarini, Marco},
title = {SkinMixer: Blending 3D Animated Models},
year = {2022},
issue_date = {December 2022},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
volume = {41},
number = {6},
issn = {0730-0301},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3550454.3555503},
doi = {10.1145/3550454.3555503},
abstract = {We propose a novel technique to compose new 3D animated models, such as videogame characters, by combining pieces from existing ones. Our method works on production-ready rigged, skinned, and animated 3D models to reassemble new ones. We exploit mix-and-match operations on the skeletons to trigger the automatic creation of a new mesh, linked to the new skeleton by a set of skinning weights and complete with a set of animations. The resulting model preserves the quality of the input meshings (which can be quad-dominant and semi-regular), skinning weights (inducing believable deformation), and animations, featuring coherent movements of the new skeleton.Our method enables content creators to reuse valuable, carefully designed assets by assembling new ready-to-use characters while preserving most of the hand-crafted subtleties of models authored by digital artists. As shown in the accompanying video, it allows for drastically cutting the time needed to obtain the final result.},
journal = {ACM Trans. Graph.},
month = {nov},
articleno = {250},
numpages = {15},
keywords = {model composition, skinning weights}
}
git clone --recursive https://github.com/stefanonuvoli/skinmixerInstall the required libraries eigen, boost, gurobi, openVDB, libQGLViewer.
If you want to use FBX models, you have to install FBXSDK. We used version 7.1.0 in our tests.
Open the file configuration.pri and set the paths of the requested libraries and the gurobi parameters:
#External libraries
EIGEN_PATH = /usr/include/eigen3/
BOOST_PATH = /usr/include/boost/
LIBGQLVIEWER_PATH = /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
OPENVDB_PATH = /usr/local/lib/
FBXSDK_PATH = /opt/fbxsdk/
GUROBI_PATH = /opt/gurobi950/linux64/
GUROBI_COMPILER = gurobi_g++5.2
GUROBI_LIB = gurobi95
You can now compile the project skinmixer.pro with qmake or QtCreator. You could need to rebuild it twice, after lp_solve has been built.
In case you have technical issues or building problems, please write to stefano.nuvoli@gmail.com or nico.pietroni@uts.edu.au.
This software is a prototype, and you could face some issues in the interface and in the final results.