Novel method for curved path human walking animation

Human walking is frequently simulated in Computer Animation, for it is the haic and widely used locomotion of human being. Many algorithms have been designed, which can be divided into two kinds: Kinematics based and Dynamics based. This paper concentrate on the simulation of curved path human walking in Virtual Environment. We use a new method, parabolic fitting, to optimize path generated by path planning. It is very convenient to get face direction and path length information from this method. A blend factor is provided to control the approximation level to original path of the optimized path. Inverse kinematics is then used to generate walking animation. The foot of stance leg is constrained to fix on the ground and the foot of the swing leg is controlled by a swing curve. Only high level parameters such as speed, stroke are needed to generate walking animation.