1. Unity 3D Rolfe Bozier 24-Apr-2017
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2. What is Unity 3D? Multiplatform game development engine
2D and 3D games
Features
rendering, animation, gameplay, audio, networking, VR, multiplayer, ads, analytics, multi-platform deployment, ...
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3. Its use as a research tool
Used extensively as a research tool - many research papers
crowd simulations
action recognition
virtual dressing room
role playing simulations
robot motion visualisation
How is it relevant to CiSRA?
rendering, animation, gameplay → realistic human motion simulation
augmentation of real video data
creation of new synthetic data
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4. Functionality Firstly, what it doesn't do (easily)
character appearance / artwork
Usually imported from modelling software (Maya, Poser, Quixel, 3ds Max etc)
changing character editing appearance
creation of human animation from scratch
photorealistic effects (hair movement, clothing draping, skin lighting)
OK, what can it do for current CiSRA work?
scene rendering (camera, scene construction, appearance, lighting)
animation of characters (body movement, fingers, faces etc)
construct sequences of actions
automation – unsupervised rendering of programmed sequences
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5. Human simulation - appearance
Rendering
camera, lighting and shadows
textures (material, bumpmaps, mipmaps, reflections, procedural, …)
shaders (albedo, emission, specular, gloss, alpha, normal, …)
post-render effects (blur, flare, halo, fog, depth-of-field, …)
Scene construction
3D primitives (cube, plane, sphere, cylinder, capsule, quad)
3D models, meshes, terrain
Characters
skeleton = bones and joints, the basis for animation
rigged mesh = the body and clothing attached to the skeleton
animation = how the skeleton should move
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6. Human simulation - motion
Animation is defined by motion clips
motion capture
created in animation software
Usually in the form of a skeleton with bone motion
individual bone motion + overall root motion
Retargeting
applying a motion clip to another compatible character
muscle settings define response to motion
one animation can be used by many characters
many animations can be used by a character
We want to do more than just work with animations from somewhere else…
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7. Human simulation - motion
Unity can create new animations from existing ones
Motion blending
sequentially combine animations
smoothly transition from one motion to another
blend curves control the interpolation of bones movement
smoothly go from standing to walking to running, etc
Motion masking
apply different animations to different parts of the body
e.g. combine standing (lower body) with a waving action (upper body)
e.g. animate a face independently of the body actions
Inverse kinematics
move hand/foot and have the rest of the body follow
e.g. climbing stairs, walking up ramps, picking up objects
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8. Human simulation - behavioural
Animation controllers
a state machine defining the actions a character performs
each state specifies a motion to be performed
transitions are initiated by events or scripts
transitions are controlled by motion blends
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9. Human simulation - behavioural
We can create semi-autonomous characters that can navigate through a scene
Unity’s navigation and pathfinding system controls where characters can go
Navigation meshes control where a character can move
A goal defines the desired location
Obstacles must be avoided
Unity will move the character to the goal in a realistic motion
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10. Human simulation - physics
So far we have dealt with predetermined animations
Unity has support for physics-controlled movement
Gravity, friction, inertia, forces, collisions, bounce
Collision detection
Characters are normally animated by motions only
alternatively you can enable ragdoll animation
usually used for having a character collapse
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11. Programming in Unity Built-in scripting - C# + .Net
Everything is a “Game Object”
Consistent, rich API to interact with them
Events can enable new actions
timers
collisions & triggers
visibility
at a specific point in an animation
initiated by scripting
object lifetime: creation, start-up, per-frame, destruction
Objects can be given “artificial intelligence” to act as independent agents
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12. What is the best that can be achieved?
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