Abstract: Linework on 3D animated characters is an important aspect of stylized looks for films. We present CurveCrafter, a system allowing animators to create new lines on 3D models and to edit the shape and opacity of silhouette curves. Our tools allow users to draw, redraw, erase, edit and retime user created curves. Silhouette curves can have their shape edited or reverted, and their opacity erased or revealed. Our algorithm for propagating edits over tracked silhouette curves ensures temporal consistency even as curves expand and merge. Five professional animators used our system to animate lines on three shots with different characters. Additionally, the effects lead from the short film Pete used our system to more easily recreate edits on a film shot. CurveCrafter was able to successfully enhance the resulting animations with additional linework.

Nora S Willett, Kurt Fleischer, Haldean Brown, Ilene L E, and Mark Meyer. 2023. CurveCrafter: A System for Animated Curve Manipulation. In The 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’23), October 29–November 01, 2023, San Francisco, CA, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 11 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606792