AI can Make it Possible to Move a 3D Model of the Character

First, a 3D dog head cartoon character selected:

Draw a skeleton on it:

You can move:

In the same way, the 3D boy can also be moved:

Let the 3D tall big girl move:

Let 3D cats live and jump:

In short, everything should be just a static 3D character model. Whether it is a human being or an animal, or a cartoon creative character that does not exist in nature, you can see the bones from the static to the dynamic. Even the shadow works very well! I only know boneless chicken and boneless duck's paw. All this is done automatically by an AI called RigNet . As long as the character's 3D dynamic shape is designed, it can automatically predict the character's skeleton, estimate the weight of the skin outside the skeleton, and generate an image of the character's movement.
This is much more convenient than manual animation. If it can be used in 3D animation or 3D game production, there is no need to worry about dragging or ticket jumping in the future. This research also appeared on SIGGRAPH 2020, authors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Toronto.

Multi-network cooperation

AI needs to go through two steps to move the 3D character: first, determine the position of the bone, and then predict the weight of the skin outside the skeleton. The bones have joints and can rotate, so the AI ​​must first find those joints when making predictions.

Reference

https://zhan-xu.github.io/rig-net/

RigNet: Neural Rigging for Articulated Characters