They’ve built a library of small building blocks for character movements. These blocks can be combined in various ways to create a wide range of animations. … Instead of designing separate animations for each of these situations, they use these building blocks to put together the character’s movements naturally.
This sounds like shape keys, which is a technique already widely used in games and animation today. When you get shot in Battlefield, your character model plays a “getting shot” animation. When your character runs, it plays a “running” animation. When your character gets shot while running, these two animations are combined - it’s not a separate “shot while running” animation.
Would love to know if there’s actually some novel aspect to this “invention” but it seems more likely that this is yet another bullshit patent approved by a clueless clerk who did zero searches for prior art.
Edit: Read the patent. Not only does it describe nothing novel, it doesn’t even document what they did. All it says is basically “we created animation blocks and combine them”. The details are just a bunch of bullshit jargon spew:
attributes can include conditions, properties, events, flags, graphs, values, references, and variants
I think this would make it tough to enforce the patent if it’s actually commonly used. If I were somehow granted a patent on tap dancing, its common usage by others before me would probably cause my patent to be invalidated if I then tried to sue a tap dancer.
Not a patent lawyer, but IIRC, US patent law had some protections for things (including non-patented) that are already common practice.
Software patents get away with stupid shit like this all the time. Patent trolls claim they invented a software pattern and then sue everyone who uses it.
They would only be able to get away with this if it had already been determined that they did indeed invent that thing. Many choose not to fight cease and desists when it would be in their best interest to counter claim.
You can’t grant a patent for something that is already in the public domain at the time of filing, regardless of whether or not that thing is currently patent protected.
Edit: this is such a funny comment to want to downvote. “Fuck you with your legitimate factual information!”
Novelty is assessed against all publicly disclosed prior art, not just the stuff that has been patented.
If I publish content on a webpage that could be used as prior art later on assessing novelty.
If I invent a special lawnmower and only show my friends and family and never sell it or patent it, that could still count as public disclosure and be used against anyone wishing to patent a similar lawnmower.
I work in patents. If it wasn’t novel it wouldn’t be granted, believe me.
My experience with clients has led me to never trust lay people’s judgements on what is or is not novel.
Feel free to actually read the examiner’s comments in this patent application for an actually full understanding of the process
Or better still if you think you are able to assess novelty though a 5 minute cursory read of a patent without any reference to prior art, feel free to do my job for me. You’re clearly much more efficient and unbiased and definitely aren’t cutting any corners in your evaluation. Both in understanding the law and understanding how to assess novelty in a proper way.
I work in patents. If it wasn’t novel it wouldn’t be granted, believe me.
I work in computer graphics software. My former employer preferred that engineers liberally apply for “defensive” patents because of how often people would get a patent for something we already did and then try to sue us for it. Plus we got a small cash bonus when our patents were approved. Through this process, I was granted six patents for my work there. It would be unwise to put something to text that could be used as evidence to invalidate the patents, so I’ll just say that my opinion on how low the bar is to getting software patents approved is definitely well-informed.
understanding the law and understanding how to assess novelty in a proper way
I’ll admit I have little understanding of the legal definition of “novel”, but insofar as the intent of the patent system, the current bar is way too low for software patents. Although remedied recently, the plethora of software patents that still exist for “(Something people have done for decades) but do it on a computer” is ridiculous.
If it was something you already did prior to filing and you could prove it then their case would be extremely flimsy, but I do understand where you come from.
It really depends on jurisdiction, in the UK it’s not possible to even patent software. In Europe it is, but regulations are strict. The US patent law is a little bit wonky in this regard.
You’ve not even referenced the claims of the patent, which is actually what is protected. It’s already extremely likely the examiner has flagged these up as prior art and more and still passed it as allowable after a thorough novelty search and several rounds of amendments. Lots of things are sort of like other inventions but what they actually do lies outside of the claim scope.
The invention is not what is patented, the claims are. There are undoubtedly novel features in the claims or again the examiner wouldn’t allow it.
Barring a performance of a full novelty search where you break down the claims and compare them to the prior art individually, you aren’t convincing me that the claims aren’t novel.
Assessing novelty is one of the most difficult parts of being a patent attorney and can’t be done with a cursory search.
A locomotion system for controlling animation of a character in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment comprising: a rendering engine; a core system logic communicatively coupled to the rendering engine for executing core game logic of the virtual environment …
This is basically a description of a game engine that supports movement and animation. Descent (1994) would be the earliest production use of such an engine.
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein a key identifies one or more variables of the blackboard, the key comprising a human readable name associated with the variables to provide the selection criteria.
Congratulations, you just described “variables”, a concept at least as old as ENIAC (1945).
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein the core game logic defines one or more desired physical movements to sequence the motion type objects blocks.
Yes, that’s one way to describe “animation”
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein a selected archetype block defines a fallback archetype block, the fallback archetype block defining at least one new motion animation block or motion type block not present in the selected archetype block and inheriting any remaining motion type blocks and motion animation blocks from the selected archetype block.
Variables having a default value is the default behavior of most programming languages and software systems.
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein a selected archetype block defines the character’s default animation.
Yea, we’re talking about animation here. Default value of animation description = default animation.
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein a selected archetype block of the character is unique from a second archetype block of a second character and at least one motion type block is common across the character and the second character.
Inheritance, a property of most software designs since the 1980s.
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the motion animation blocks, the motion type blocks, and the archetype blocks is defined by a series of extensible markup language (XML)-based meta files.
Storing configuration in a data file. You’d be hard pressed to find an alternative. Maybe some genius will come along and find some way to represent it in JSON…
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein a selected attribute of a selected motion animation block includes at least one of a clip set that is used by a selected motion of the character, an overloadable animation blend tree to be used for the selected motion, named additional clips within specific clip sets, parametric blends from sets that can be named, a Boolean that specifies whether play speed of the selected motion can be modified, a minimum speed, and a maximum speed.
This seems to be the main claim of the patent, but seems to have a huge amount of prior art (see links). “Parametric blends” and other terms are just jargon.
The locomotion system of claim 1, wherein the attributes of the motion animation block are custom float values.
Oh my god. Really? Shall we also include “doubles”, “halfs”, or maybe “rationals”?
The locomotion system of claim 1, further comprising one or more transition tables to control a relationship between motion animation blocks.
“Translation table” seems to just be referring to the graph topology of the system. Yes, graphs are the most common way to represent arbitrary N:M relationships.
The locomotion system of claim 1, further comprising an in-game graphical user interface for real-time modification of at least one of the motion animation blocks, the motion type blocks, and the archetype blocks.
Node-based editing; standard practice in all 3D modeling.
A computer-implemented method for controlling animation of a character in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment comprising: executing core game logic to render the virtual environment using a core system logic communicatively coupled to a rendering engine …
Yes, you already described what a game engine is and an animation system is. Game engines certainly do have animation systems…
The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein said animating the character further comprises identifying a second archetype block, the common set of motion type blocks and the motion animation blocks of the second archetype block altering the animation of the character as a game story defined by the core game logic develops.
Picking animation keys based on game logic. What else would you base it on exactly?
The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein said animating the character further comprises identifying a fallback archetype block of the archetype block, the fallback archetype block defining at least one new motion animation block or motion type block not present in the selected archetype block and inheriting any remaining motion type blocks and motion animation blocks from the selected archetype block.
Yes, default values do be defaultin’.
A computer program product for controlling animation of a character in a three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment, the computer program product including a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a device to cause the device to perform a method comprising: executing core game logic to render the virtual environment using a core system logic communicatively coupled to a rendering engine …
Yep, software sure does run on computers. Computers are neat. And they have storage.
The computer program product of claim 15, wherein said animating the character further comprises identifying a second archetype block, the common set of motion type objects blocks and the motion animation blocks of the second archetype block altering the animation of the character as a game story defined by the core game logic develops.
Are we really going to enumerate all the permutations of engine + animation + defaults claims?
The computer program product of claim 15, wherein said animating the character further comprises identifying a fallback archetype block of the archetype block, the fallback archetype block defining at least one new motion animation block or motion type block not present in the selected archetype block and inheriting any remaining motion type objects blocks and motion animation blocks from the selected archetype block.
All the claims except 8 are “obvious” IMO. Claim 8 fails novelty because of the huge amount of prior art on the matter.
Note that I’m using “novelty” and “obvious” according to their english definitions, and the intent of patent protection. If they’re different in practice, that’s a failing of current patent law.
If you think you can do better than a patent office examiner get on it because they’re extremely well paid.
Or maybe you could stop and draw a line under what you think is correct. Have you ever considered the possibility that actually you haven’t got the first clue how to properly analyse a patent because it’s a profession that requires extensive training and eye to detail?
I know on the internet it’s fun to pretend you actually know everything because everything is a Google search away but to even properly contextualise and separate good patents and bad patents isn’t a skill you can just pick up in 5 minutes to win an argument.
It sounds more like they’re using more fundamental movements than what you’re describing, not running animation+shot animation but more like:
Both reloading a particular weapon and mantling over a walk require you to lift your arms, so the root movement of lifting your arm to reload an LMG is the same one used to grab a ledge overhead, etc.
Basically they’re just categorizing movements based on use case and direction so they can string those individual movements into different and unique patterns for individual actions.
Pressing an elevator button uses the same arm movement as opening a door, which uses the same wrist rotation movement as turning the key in a car, etc. So they just break down individual movements in the same way an LLM breaks down a voice into phonetics to string new words together.
It’s definitely possible they’re doing something novel internally, but the details that would support that interpretation are missing from the filing. One of the requirements for patents is that it “sufficient disclosure of the invention so that it can be reproduced by others”. I would say I qualify as an expert in the domain covered, and I have no idea what they’re actually doing based on the patent alone.
Not sure I fully belive this. Multiple devs have said they were consulted about the proposed policy, gave negative feedback, and were ignored. Unity knew what they were doing and claiming it was rushed sounds like a weak attempt to dodge accountability.
I don’t know how old you are, but I feel like younger people say this more often than older people.
As someone who saw the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32/64-bit in their childhood, graphics were everything from the 80s until at least the 2000s. Each new generation was leaps and bounds better than the last; I remember the discussions in the playground being centered around nothing but graphics every time a new console was announced. Nobody talked about the games.
Nowadays we have incremental updates at best, so now people care less and less about graphics like they used to. Not me, though. I’m still a graphics slut and an absolute whore for path traced games. I’ll play a game I don’t enjoy if it has the latest in graphics tech.
I’m old and hold the opposite opinion. Those first few generational leaps were amazing. But I feel like we’ve long reached the point that almost any experience can be conveyed with impact.
I enjoy the new bells and whistles. But these incremental upgrades come coupled with skyrocketing costs, longer development times, and fewer risks. Indie gaming is still innovating of course, but I miss when AAA studios were churning out risky, unique titles.
Yeah but Rockstar won’t using that they were using just standard animations so it’s fine that they’ve come up with around animation system cuz they use their own engine.
I understand their reasoning… My point is why patent a locomotion style when no one gives a shit if the game is shit. I don’t think a great looking walking animation is going to move the needle as to a game’s sales.
Who cares? Give me great game mechanics. It will be the dated missions with you being always an inch from failure in an open world. Give me another Zelda pls. Or better yet (since I haven’t played it) Horizon Forbidden West.
Definitely hated their use of universal ammo to cater to their weird weapon system. Maybe I’m not quite into this kind of horror, but I also didn’t care much for the direction the story took right at its ending.
I just bought the remaster of Ark (Yeah I’m a consumer whore, I know). It looks fantastic, incredible visuals but I’m not sure if the frame rate matches with how good it looks.
I don't know, I had fun playing it, and I really like the build your own weapon aspect of it. The story definitely needed a rework though. The ending left the whole series on a bit of a sour note imo.
Played through coop recently with a friend who’s also a series fan. The game is a bloated disaster. Too many reused assets, useless mechanics and a real icky feeling that all EA games have that they were designed by committee.
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Aktywne