Samuel Polacchini

Game Programmer

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Choreo Dancer: Irish Dance

Description

The Choreo Dancer is the first application based on the Body Brain Framework; it executes dance choreographies for a given music and its final ambition was the creation of virtual Irish Dance musicals.

The Body Brain Framework was once an open source project I had created on Google Code, it brings the concept of body intelligence to character animation, being an innovative middleware that proposes a new abstraction layer to link the popular AI approaches (usually HFSMs or Behavior Trees) with the animation logic (usually Blend Trees and IK). Such layer considers the possible positions and combinations between members and search for an integrated solution in order to reach the desired poses.  

The resulting implemented application allows the execution of Irish Dance choreographies (soft shoes) transcript to XMLs as shown in the videos and images bellow. This was thanks to the combination of popular AI techniques: concurrent state machines, a modified behavior tree and an adaptation of the A* pathfinder.

Video

Screenshots

(scroll with your finger on mobile)
  1. 1
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Skills

  • Python programing
  • AI Programming (pathfinder, concurrent state machines and behavior trees)
  • Basics of modeling, rigging and animating

Environment

  • Eclipse IDE (PyDev)
  • Blender
  • Blender Game Engine

Role

Game (Middleware) Researcher and Programmer as self-employed

Development Period

Full time from March to November, 2008. Part time after that, until June 2009.

Project Status

Incomplete regarding its final ambitions, the Body Brain Framework core was once open source at Google Code, but after years without maintenance it is not available anymore.