Virtuoso cartoon pianist plays just like the real thing

Watch a professional pianist play and you'll be struck at how effortlessly their hands skip across the keys. Making an animated character do the same is much harder, so researchers from the University of California, Davis, have built an algorithm designed to make computer-generated hands tickle the ivories far more realistically. Their software auomatically generates a 3D animation of piano-playing hands based solely on inputted music. The software analyses a music file, then builds a pair of animated hands playing the song. Developed with colleagues by Davis computer scientist Yuanfeng Zhu, the system is based on the idea that virtuoso pianists will always move their hands in a way that relaxes their body and saves energy. more