Watch Your Step: Real-Time Adaptive Character Stepping
Ben Kenwright

TL;DR
This paper introduces a fast, robust, and easy-to-implement real-time control algorithm for bipedal character stepping, combining a modified inverted-pendulum model with ankle feedback and variable leg lengths to handle diverse interactive scenarios.
Contribution
The authors develop a novel extension of the inverted-pendulum model that enables real-time adaptive stepping for humanoid avatars without pre-processing or online optimization.
Findings
Handles terrain height changes and push forces effectively
Produces human-like, upright stepping motions
Operates in real-time with high computational efficiency
Abstract
An effective 3D stepping control algorithm that is computationally fast, robust, and easy to implement is extremely important and valuable to character animation research. In this paper, we present a novel technique for generating dynamic, interactive, and controllable biped stepping motions. Our approach uses a low-dimensional physics-based model to create balanced humanoid avatars that can handle a wide variety of interactive situations, such as terrain height shifting and push exertions, while remaining upright and balanced. We accomplish this by combining the popular inverted-pendulum model with an ankle-feedback torque and variable leg-length mechanism to create a controllable solution that can adapt to unforeseen circumstances in real-time without key-framed data, any offline pre-processing, or on-line optimizations joint torque computations. We explain and address…
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Taxonomy
TopicsHuman Motion and Animation · Human Pose and Action Recognition · Music Technology and Sound Studies
