US Patent 11170553 Methods and systems for generating an animation control rig

An aspect provides a computer-implemented method for generating an animation control rig configured to manipulate a skeleton of an animated character. The method comprises associating 502 a plurality of animation control points to an animated skeleton; traversing (504, 512) a node graph representing the plurality of animation control points of the animated skeleton; analyzing 506 the hierarchical node graph to determine which nodes of the hierarchical node graph are inversely solvable; analyzing 508 the hierarchical node graph to determine which other nodes of the hierarchical node graph are solvable with at least one solution that violates a constraint of the animated skeleton; and modifying 510 an operation of at least one node of the other nodes that violates a constraint to approximate the constraint within a tolerance level.