Flexible point handles metaphor for character deformation

Skinning using point handles has experimentally shown its effectiveness for stretching, twisting, and supple deformations [Jacobson et al. 2011] which are difficult to achieve using rigid bones. However, point handles are much less effective for limbs bending since their influence weights vary over the skin mesh. This poster presents an efficient scheme, which expands the space of deformations possible to the point handles by supporting rigid bending using a rigidity energy minimization framework. Thus, 3D points that are much easier to design while provide larger space of deformations than a skeleton can be used as alternative handles in character skinning.