Grant: Idea to Innovation

Computer generated animations of human characters and fantastic creatures are required in many industries of importance to Canada. These computer generated visual effects are seen in almost every feature film, television commercial, and video game today. The final image seen is that of the skin or skin-like covering of the character. Such animations are also useful in the biomedical field. However, modeling realistic skin movement has proven to be a difficult challenge.The objective of our project is to create a software library that could be used to produce realistic skin movement. The software builds upon our recent breakthrough in simulating skin-like materials moving in close contact with the body. However, to translate the research prototype into a useful innovation several difficult problems must be addressed. The software must be made very robust and not fail even when skin is highly compressed. Its performance must be dramatically improved by exploiting novel algorithms and powerful graphics hardware. New features such as wrinkling of skin must be added. Our project will address all these problems and produce a high quality library that will be in demand for a wide range of applications. The library will be commercialized by a spin-off company.