Komaritzan, Martin2022-09-222022-09-222022http://hdl.handle.net/2003/4107510.17877/DE290R-22922This thesis presents two different layered character models that are ready to be used in physics-based simulations, in particular they enable convincing character animations in real-time. We start by introducing a two-layered model consisting of rigid bones and an elastic soft tissue layer that is efficiently constructed from a surface mesh of the character and its underlying skeleton. Building on this model, we introduce Fast Projective Skinning, a novel approach for physics-based character skinning. While maintaining real-time performance it overcomes the well-known artifacts of commonly used geometric skinning approaches. It further enables dynamic effects and resolves local and global self-collisions. In particular, our method neither requires skinning weights, which are often expensive to compute or tedious to hand-tune, nor a complex volumetric tessellation, which fails for many real-world input meshes due to self-intersections. By developing a custom-tailored GPU implementation and a high-quality upsampling method, our ap- proach is the first skinning method capable of detecting and handling arbitrary global collisions in real-time. In the second part of the thesis, we extend the idea of a simplified two-layered volumetric model by developing an anatomically plausible three-layered representation of human virtual characters. Starting with an anatomy model of the male and female body, we show how to generate a layered body template for both sexes. It is composed of three surfaces for bones, muscles and skin enclosing the volumetric skeleton, muscles and fat tissues. Utilizing the simple structure of these templates, we show how to fit them to the surface scan of a person in just a few seconds. Our approach includes a data-driven method for estimating the amount of muscle mass and fat mass from a surface scan, which provides more accurate fits to the variety of human body shapes compared to previous approaches. Additionally, we demonstrate how to efficiently embed fine-scale anatomical details, such as high resolution skeleton and muscle models, into the layered fit of a person. Our second model can be used for physical simulation, statistical analysis and anatomical visualization in computer animation or in medical applications, which we demonstrate on several examples.enAnimationVirtual characterSkinningPhysics-based simulationGPU computing004doctoral thesisComputeranimationComputersimulationGrafikprozessor