What is Make-It-Animatable
Make-It-Animatable is a data-driven framework launched by the University of Science and Technology of China and Tencent PCG. It can make any 3D humanoid model ready for character animation in less than one second, regardless of its shape and pose. The framework is based on generating high-quality blend weights, skeletons, and pose transformations, and supports multiple 3D representations, including meshes and 3D Gaussian splats. Based on a coarse-to-fine representation and structure-aware modeling strategy, it ensures accuracy and robustness, and is even suitable for characters with non-standard skeletal structures. Compared with existing methods, Make-It-Animatable has significant improvements in both quality and speed.
Main features of Make-It-Animatable
- Instant animation preparation: Quickly transform any 3D humanoid model into an animation-ready state, regardless of its shape and pose.
- Automatic generation of animation assets: Automatically generate high-quality skeletons, blend weights, and pose transformations, providing the necessary data for animation production.
- Support for multiple 3D data formats: Supports multiple 3D data representations, including 3D meshes and 3D Gaussian splats.
- Fine-to-coarse multi-level representation: Adopts a fine-to-coarse multi-level representation method to improve the model's ability to capture details in key regions.
- Structure-aware modeling: Recognizes and adapts to non-standard skeletal structures, improving the model's adaptability and accuracy.
Technical principles of Make-It-Animatable
- Particle-based shape autoencoder: Particle-based autoencoder technology encodes and decodes 3D shapes, and can support multiple 3D representations.
- Coarse-to-fine representation strategy: First performs rough shape and joint position prediction, then refines the prediction to improve accuracy.
- Structure-aware skeletal modeling: Based on considering the topological structure of the skeleton, it improves the accuracy of skeleton prediction, especially in complex skeletal structures.
- Blend weight and bone position prediction: Uses deep learning technology to predict the blend weight and bone position of each vertex, achieving precise skinning.
- Prediction of pose transformation: Predicts the transformation of the model from the current pose to the standard rest pose, so that various animations can be applied.
Project address of Make-It-Animatable
- Project official website：jasongzy.github.io/Make-It-Animatable
- GitHub repository：https://github.com/jasongzy/Make-It-Animatable
- arXiv technical paper：https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.18197
- Online experience Demo：https://make-it-animatable.jasongzy.com/
Application scenarios of Make-It-Animatable
- Video game development: Quickly generate animations for game characters, reducing the workload of manually adjusting skeletons and skinning, and improving the efficiency of game development.
- Film and television production: Used in CG character animation production in films and TV series, improving the realism and production speed of animation.
- Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR): In VR and AR applications, quickly generate realistic 3D characters and enhance the user experience.
- Animated films and series: Animation production companies can quickly produce high-quality animation sequences, saving time and cost.
- Simulation and training software: Used in military or medical simulation software to quickly generate realistic character movements for simulation training.