US Patent 7292250 Character deformation pipeline for computer-generated animation

A deformation system for animation abstracts the notion of per-point deformation to create a pipeline, including a number of deformation modules capable of handling animation of geometry (such as characters), dynamics (such as simulations) and/or effects (such as particle systems). Deformation pipelines are defined, that work as templates capable of deforming and animating families of similar characters. Support is provided for various binding modes, including sequential, parallel, blend, and hierarchical, so as to facilitate several techniques for combining deformations.