Path Finding for the Animation of Walking Characters

Both path finding and character animation play an important role in virtual environments. In this paper we describe a new approach to plan the path for a single character, taking into account constraints put forth by the availability of the motion capture data. The final path of the character is guaranteed to be valid in the way that the final animation along the path is valid and correct. We also extend the approach to groups of characters. Experiments show that the approach produces paths and animations that are valid and correct. The performance of the approach is good, making the approach applicable in real-time applications.