Skeletal Animation Skinning Algorithm

Skeletal animation is one of the most popular techniques in the field ofreal-time character animation. Its core idea is to build a hierarchical skeleton forthe articulated character, to attach a mesh model (skin) to the skeleton, andthen to drive the mesh model moving using the animation data of the skeleton.Skeleton-based skinning, also known as the bone and skin binding orskeletal subspace deformation (Skeletal Subspace Deformation, SSD), is a keyingredient of the skeletal animation. Skinning algorithms can greatly save themachine memory, enhance the computing speed, and create high-realisticanimation. Currently, popular skinning algorithms include linear blend skinning,spherical blend skinning and dual quaternion blend skinning.This paper conducts a comparative study on the three skinning algorithms.We first describe their principle, then discuss their advantages anddisadvantages, and finally perform an experimental comparison based on ourskinning system to verify the following conclusion: the linear blend skinning issimple and easy to implement, but prone to exhibit serious skin distortion; thespherical blend skinning can eliminate the distortion artifact, but is moretime-consuming than the linear blend skinning; the dual quaternion skinning issimple enough, is able to produce high quality meshes, and is more efficient thanthe spherical blend skinning.