US 12,456,244 B2
Autonomous animation in embodied agents
Jo Hutton, Auckland (NZ); Mark Sagar, Auckland (NZ); Amy Wang, Auckland (NZ); Hannah Clark-Younger, Auckland (NZ); Kirstin Marcon, Auckland (NZ); Paige Skinner, Auckland (NZ); Shane Blakett, Auckland (NZ); Teah Rota, Auckland (NZ); Tim Szu-Hsien Wu, Auckland (NZ); Utkarsh Saxena, Auckland (NZ); Xueyuan Zhang, Auckland (NZ); Hazel Watson-Smith, Auckland (NZ); Travers Biddle, Auckland (NZ); and Emma Perry, Auckland (NZ)
Filed by SOUL MACHINES LIMITED, Auckland (NZ)
Filed on May 18, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/199,126.
Application 18/199,126 is a continuation of application No. PCT/IB2021/060793, filed on Nov. 22, 2021.
Claims priority of application No. 770193 (NZ), filed on Nov. 20, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2023/0377238 A1, Nov. 23, 2023
Int. Cl. G06T 13/40 (2011.01); G06F 40/117 (2020.01); G06F 40/211 (2020.01); G06F 40/242 (2020.01); G06F 40/284 (2020.01); G06F 40/30 (2020.01)
CPC G06T 13/40 (2013.01) [G06F 40/284 (2020.01); G06F 40/117 (2020.01); G06F 40/211 (2020.01); G06F 40/242 (2020.01); G06F 40/30 (2020.01); G06T 2213/12 (2013.01)] 6 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of animating a virtual character or digital entity, including the steps of:
receiving Input Text specifying words to be spoken by the virtual character or digital entity;
determining an emphasis score of each word in the Input Text;
determining a set of words with higher emphasis score compared to the remaining words in the Input Text; and
animating a virtual character or digital entity to speak the Input Text and applying a gesture to each word from the set of words with higher emphasis score; and
wherein at least one of:
(a) the gesture is applied to a stressed syllable of each word from the set of words with the higher emphasis score;
(b) the emphasis score is based on word rarity, wherein frequencies of words determine the word rarity;
(c) wherein the gesture applied to each word from the set of words has a gesture amplitude proportional or substantially proportional to the emphasis score of the word; and/or
(d) wherein the emphasis score is calculated by applying a set of criteria to determine the emphasis score of each word, wherein a contribution of each criterion to the emphasis score is weighted using a weighting.