Ideas for Final Animation Projects

Note: you don't have to pick one of these, but you must pick something...

Motion Childification

Use neuro-anatomy-based ideas on how children have less control of their muscles (and therefore have jerkier motions and less accuracy).

Game Enginer I/O

Connect motion editing software to a commercial video game engine. Demonstrate "interacting with" (e.g. blowing up) characters whose movement has been edited with your tools.

Motion Level-of-Detail

Simplify motions (to both simpler characters and less temporal resolution) for when the character is too small to be worth animating in full detail.

Optical Mocap Processor

Convert marker position information into skeletal motion data.

Automatic Skeleton Parameter Finder

Fit the limb lengths of a skeleton to a 3D "skin" such as a mesh.

Facial Motion Capture

Use Prof. Green's system to make some animation. Specifically, demonstrate his data of babies on an adult (or vice-versa).

Colored Pencil Renderer

Render images in the style of colored pencil drawings. Make animations of this (such as the style of Bill Plympton).

Cyclic Motion Creator

Turn periodic motions into infinite (but not exactly repetitive) cycles.

Implement Motion Editing in Maya

Re-create the Lee & Shin method (or a variant thereof) using the IK solver and other tools inside of Maya (or some other commercial package)

Cartoon Output

Write a "renderer" that takes 3D animation and produces a 2D cartoon (preferably in a standard file format such as flash).

Dynamic Timewarping

Implement dynamic timewarping and use it to automatically create transitions or blends.

Skinner

Move the "skin" of a character in response to the movement of its skelleton. Implement this in some cool way that is interesting.

Automatic-Rotoscoping

Create animation (2D or 3D) based on real video input. Build a tool for making this (at least semi-) automatic.

Motion Mapping

Map motion capture data to non-human characters.

Automatic Filmmaking

Automatically create animations from motion capture data. This should include automatic camera and lighting control, automatic geometry setup.