Flipping with Physics: Motion Editing for Acrobatics

Abstract

Complex acrobatic stunts, such as double or triple flips, can be performed only by highly skilled athletes. On the other hand, simpler tricks, such as single-flip jumps, are relatively easy to master.We present a method for creating complex, multi-flip ballistic motions from simple, single-flip jumps. Our approach also allows an animator to interact with the system by introducing modifications to a ballistic phase of a motion. Our method automatically adjusts motion trajectories, to assure physical validity of the motion after the modifications. The presented technique is efficient and produces physically valid results without resorting to computationally expensive optimization. To validate our approach we present the results of a study of user sensitivity to errors in angular momentum and take-off angle. The study shows that small changes of these parameters introduced by our method are not perceptible to a viewer.