Deformation based animation of snake locomotion

Abstract

We present a simple but very efficient method for snake locomotion generation. Instead of relying on conventional physical simulation or tedious key-framing, a novel deformation based approach is utilized to create realistic looking snake motion patterns. Simple sinusoidal, winding, and bending functions constitute a deformation. The combination of various deformations becomes a powerful tool describing the characteristic motions of typical snakes. As an example, we describe three basic deformations and their combinations to generate various locomotive animations with great realism. Our method provides an easy-to-use, fast, and interactive mechanism to the animator with little experience. The method is versatile in that it also takes the experienced animator`s creative inputs for the improvement of the animation quality. Using deformation based animation method, standard snake locomotion and other motions are generated.