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 oversimplifications and limitations with the basic IP model and the reasons for extending the model by means of addi