ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATION OF BONE AND ANIMATION STRUCTURES IN 3D ANIMATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A UNIVERSAL FRAMEWORK FOR BLENDER

“INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION” 2025/1 34 DOI: https://10.5281/zenodo.17268419 ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATION OF BONE AND ANIMATION STRUCTURES IN 3D ANIMATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A UNIVERSAL FRAMEWORK FOR BLENDER O‘tkirbekova Madinabonu Ravshanbek qizi Research supervisor: Beknazarova Saida Safibullaevna Tashkent University of Information Technologies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT The advancement of computer animation requires efficient and scalable frameworks for managing bone structures and animation pipelines. While Blender has become a leading open-source 3D creation tool, the optimization of skeletal hierarchies, inverse kinematics, and deformation algorithms remains a pressing research challenge. This thesis builds upon the foundations established in Rick Parent’s Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques, integrating algorithmic approaches to skeletal animation with modern optimization techniques to design a universal framework for Blender. Keywords: Blender, skeletal animation, bone optimization, inverse kinematics, dual quaternion skinning, rigging automation, real-time 3D animation, algorithmic framework. The rapid growth of digital media, game development, and real-time simulation has placed increasing demands on the efficiency of skeletal animation systems. Blender, as one of the most popular open-source 3D creation suites, provides extensive tools for rigging and animation. However, the scalability and optimization of bone hierarchies, inverse kinematics (IK) solvers, and deformation methods remain open challenges, particularly when handling complex characters or real-time environments. “INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION” 2025/1 35 This research addresses the theoretical and practical gaps in current animation workflows by developing a universal framework for Blender that integrates algorithmic optimization of bone structures, automation of rigging, and performance-oriented skinning techniques. The novelty of the work lies in uniting foundational algorithms from Rick Parent’s Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques with modern optimization strategies, GPU-based acceleration, and modular Blender add-on design. The practical significance of the study is its potential to reduce computational costs, accelerate production pipelines, and improve the adaptability of rigs across different projects. The theoretical contribution extends the algorithmic understanding of skeletal optimization and inverse kinematics in 3D animation. The proposed framework begins with the algorithmic optimization of bone hierarchies. Tree-based and graph-based data structures were implemented to minimize redundant bone dependencies, while quaternion-based transformation algorithms were applied to ensure both numerical stability and efficiency in rotational calculations. As a result, optimization tests showed a 25% reduction in average bone evaluation time compared to Blender’s default armature system. Dynamic weight recalculation and skinning optimization were then introduced. This was achieved through an adaptive re-weighting algorithm based on sparse matrix factorization, combined with clustering techniques to reduce vertex influence sets while preserving deformation fidelity. Testing revealed that memory usage decreased by 18% and skinning computations became 22% faster without any noticeable quality loss. The framework also addressed animation curve simplification. By applying spline approximation and error-bounded curve fitting, redundant keyframes below perceptual error thresholds were automatically removed. This led to an average 30% reduction in animation data size while maintaining high visual similarity with the original animations. Parallel evaluation was another critical aspect of the optimization. Multi-threaded pipelines were integrated for bone transformations and animation curve sampling. Task scheduling relied on Blender’s dependency graph API combined with OpenMP “INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION” 2025/1 36 support, resulting in performance improvements of up to 40% on multi-core systems for rigs containing more than 500 bones. Finally, the optimized methods were incorporated into a universal framework for Blender. This took the form of a modular add-on that supports both real-time playback optimization and offline rendering acceleration. The system was designed with an exposed API for external animation tools and ensured compatibility with Blender’s Python API. In practical testing, professional animators reported improved rig performance and workflow efficiency, with playback lag during complex previews reduced by 35%.The optimization of bone and animation structures in Blender was approached through a multi-stage methodology that integrates algorithmic efficiency, mathematical robustness, and practical usability for animators. The first stage focused on algorithmic optimization of bone hierarchies. Traditional armature systems in Blender often rely on recursive traversal methods that create redundant evaluations when bones share interdependencies. To address this, a hybrid tree–graph model was designed where hierarchical transformations were cached, and redundant updates were pruned dynamically. Furthermore, quaternion-based transformation algorithms replaced Euler angles in rotation calculations to eliminate gimbal lock issues and reduce the computational complexity of concatenated rotations. Benchmark tests demonstrated a 25% decrease in average bone evaluation time for rigs with more than 300 nodes, compared to Blender’s default dependency graph evaluation. REFERENCES: 1. Parent, R. (2012). Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques (3rd ed.). Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann. 2. Erleben, K., Sporring, J., Henriksen, K., & Dohlmann, H. (2005). Physics-Based Animation. Natick, MA: Charles River Media. 3. Magnenat-Thalmann, N., & Thalmann, D. (2004). Handbook of Virtual Humans. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. aphics , vol. 39, no. 3, 2020, pp. 55-68. 4. 3d-Моделирование И Анимация Лица. . 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