Research Projects - Humanoid Simulation Victor B. Zordan

Boxing - reacting

Tennis - hitting

Upper-body control

Humanoid behaviors in which the stylistic details of the motion convey meaning are important but difficult to describe explicitly, making reasonable control laws elusive. However, those nuances in movement are essential for constructing compelling human avatars. My approach to controlling for these situations combines two existing techniques for animating humanlike characters: capturing motion data from human actors and automatic synthesis of motion using dynamic simulation. A good example of the seamless blend appears below where the glove pushes on a unknowing dancer which is tracking motion data. Three more aspects of this work are described by following the links above.