Real-Time 3D Animation Technology

• I've learned and implement several different kinds of real-time 3D animation techniques. Here is the gist of it:
  Vertex Morphing - Stores key frames and use interpolation to animate the vertexes. Memory intensive but light on the CPU.
• Articulated - Individual animated parts are modeled as individual meshes, and bones and joints are used to animate the meshes. Less memory needed, but the joints are blocky because the joints don't share vertexes.
• Skinning (Rigid) - Similar to articulated, but each vertex is associated instead of at per-mesh level. Needs minimal memory, but requires more CPU power. The major draw back is that deformities can happen at the joints when animating.


• Skinning (Smooth) - A vertex can be associated with multiple bones with different weight values, this reduces the deformities at the joints but at the cost of more CPU computations.