SYSTEM AND METHOD OF DEFINING AND EMPLOYING BEHAVIOURS FOR ARTICULATED CHAINS

A system and method for defining and employing behaviours for articulated chains in computer animations. At least one control, such as a shape control or a resolution plane control, is defined for the articulated chain and is employed as a constraint by the animation engine when animating the chain with inverse kinematics. Each control comprises two or more keys, each key comprising a couple of an effector direction vector and an associated constraint. In the case of shape control keys, the associated constraints comprise a list of preferred limb orientations and in the case of resolution plane control keys, the associated constraints comprise a preferred orientation for the resolution plane. For any given goal, selected control keys are interpolated with appropriate weightings to obtain a resulting constraint to be employed by the animation engine.