
Chapter
5
Controller-Based
Animation
I
use a very general definition for the word animation, using it to describe the
process of controlling any time-varying quantity in a scene graph. The classic
setting is character animation, where an articulated object has joints that change
position and orientation over time. The quantities to be controlled are the local
transformations at the joints. Two standard approaches to animating a character are
discussed next.
This chapter covers some basic animation controllers. Section 5.1 is about key-
frame animation. When implemented for 3D characters, an artist is required to build
a character in various poses; each