Animation Compression: Main Compression Families

13 Nov 2016

Over the years, a number of techniques have emerged to address the problem of character animation compression. These can be roughly broken down into a handful of general families:

• Simple Quantization: Simply storing our key values on fewer bits
• Advanced Quantization: Super charge our simple quantization with a variable bit rate
• Sub-sampling: Varying the sampling rate to reduce the number of key frames
• Linear Key Reduction: Removing keys that can be linearly interpolated from their neighbours
• Curve Fitting: Calculating a curve that approximates our keys
• Signal Processing: Using signal processing mathematical tools such as PCA and Wavelets

Note that simple quantization and sub-sampling can be and often are used in tandem with the other three compression families although they can be used entirely on their own.

Up next: Simple Quantization

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