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Skinning with Dual Quaternions
Dual quaternion blending fixes the collapsing-joint and candy-wrapper artifacts of linear blend skinning at almost the same cost.
Abstract
Skinning of skeletally deformable models is extensively used for real-time animation of characters, creatures and similar objects. The standard solution, linear blend skinning, has some serious drawbacks that require artist intervention. Therefore, a number of alternatives have been proposed in recent years. All of them successfully combat some of the artifacts, but none challenge the simplicity and efficiency of linear blend skinning. As a result, linear blend skinning is still the number one choice for the majority of developers. In this paper, we present a novel GPU-friendly skinning algorithm based on dual quaternions. We show that this approach solves the artifacts of linear blend skinning at minimal additional cost. Upgrading an existing animation system (e.g., in a videogame) from linear to dual quaternion skinning is very easy and has negligible impact on run-time performance.
How to read this
- Category
- Method: a GPU-friendly skeletal skinning algorithm
- Contributions
- Replaces linear blend skinning's matrix blend with a dual-quaternion blend that avoids collapsing-joint and candy-wrapper artifacts
- Keeps cost close to linear blend skinning and stays GPU-friendly for real-time characters
- Drop-in upgrade for existing animation systems with negligible runtime impact
- Context
- Sits in the lineage of skeleton-driven deformation alternatives to linear blend skinning such as Pose Space Deformation (Lewis et al.), but attacks the rotation-blending math directly rather than learning corrective shapes.Builds on: Pose Space Deformation: A Unified Approach to Shape Interpolation and Skeleton-Driven Deformation
- Correctness
- Demonstrated as a real-time skinning method that removes well-known LBS artifacts at near-equal cost; a reader should note it addresses rigid-transform blending and is not a soft-tissue or muscle model, so dynamics and flesh detail are out of scope.
- Clarity
- Accessible in intent; a first pass conveys the artifact-fixing idea, a second pass is needed to follow the dual-quaternion formulation.
- How to read it
- Read the intro and figures first to see the artifacts being fixed, then do a second pass on the dual-quaternion blend math if you intend to implement it; the 2008 journal version refines this work.
Builds on
Built upon by
- Geometric Skinning with Approximate Dual Quaternion Blending 2008
- Fast and Efficient Skinning of Animated Meshes 2010
- Elasticity-Inspired Deformers for Character Articulation 2012
- Implicit Skinning: Real-Time Skin Deformation with Contact Modeling 2013
- Real-Time Skeletal Skinning with Optimized Centers of Rotation 2016
- Velocity Skinning for Real-time Stylized Skeletal Animation 2021
- Joint-Based Skin Deformation in 'God of War Ragnarok' 2023
Related work
- Geometric Skinning with Approximate Dual Quaternion Blending 2008 / SIGGRAPH
- Stretchable and Twistable Bones for Skeletal Shape Deformation 2011 / SIGGRAPH Asia
- Segmentation-Based Skinning 2017 / CAVW
- Velocity Skinning for Real-time Stylized Skeletal Animation 2021 / CGF
Keywords
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