Conditional optimised paths in animated state machines

• Main Authors: COKER, ANDREW R, CHAN, PING LEUNG, LIAO, BIN
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 28.06.2012
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS

CONDITIONAL OPTIMISED PATHS IN ANIMATED STATE MACHINES Dislcosed is a method of performing a sequence of animations from a first state to a 5 final state via a plurality of states of a state machine based animated widget. Each of the plurality of states has a defined visual appearance. The method determines a plurality of state transitions from the first state to the final state and evaluates if a corresponding animation associated with each of the transitions is mandatory or non-mandatory based on a first predetermined criteria. The method selects a first sequence of state transitions 10 from the plurality of state transitions having a corresponding first sequence of animations evaluated as non-mandatory, said first sequence of animations having a start and end state. An alternative sequence of animation between the start and end states of the first sequence of animations is determined wherein the alternative sequence is selected to optimise a second predetermined criteria. The method then selects a second 15 sequence of state transitions from the plurality of state transitions having a corresponding second sequence of animations evaluated as mandatory. At least the alternative sequence of animations and the second sequence of animations are then executed (405, 406) to perform the sequence of animations. Start DETERMINE SEQUENCE OF STATE TRANSITIONS EVALUATE IF EACH ANIMATION IS MANDATORY IDENTIFY SEQUENCE OF NON MANDATORY TRANSITIONS DETERMINE OPTIMISED ANIMATION SEQUENCE IDENTIFY SEQUENCE OF MANDATORY TRANSITIONS EXECUTE ALTERNATE AND SECOND ANIMATION