The Effects of Noise on the Perception of Animated Human Running
Bobby Bodenheimer, Anna V. Shleyfman, and Jessica K. Hodgins
Abstract
Cyclic motions such as running or walking are difficult to animate
because limitations in time and technology often result in only a
small number of distinct cycles being produced. These few cycles are
then repeated to create an animation of the desired
length. Unfortunately, the repetitiveness of the resulting motion
often appears unnatural. This paper seeks to fix this problem by
determining how to introduce natural-looking variability into cyclic
animations of human motion. We construct a noise function based on
biomechanical considerations that introduces natural-looking
perturbations in a base running motion produced either by dynamic
simulation or from motion capture data. We evaluate our results
through human subject testing. The topic is explored more fully in the
Variability Project Page.
Bobby Bodenheimer 
Last modified: Sat Sep 28 08:06:17 2003