I am proposing an open-source library for producing real-time dynamic 2d and 3d character animations on-the-fly via physical simulation and driven by customizable high-level controllers, for use in games and other interactive simulations. This would be designed to complement already existing physics engines (such as ODE or Bullet) and skeletal character animation libraries (such as CAL3D or those found in open-source game engines OGRE or Irrlicht). The library is to be called Robust Extensible Animation Control Toolkit (REACT).

I see a lot of people (mostly students and hobbyists in the www.gamedev.net community) re-inventing the wheel by writing their own rag doll simulations, and then not taking the next evolutionary step to having their rag dolls get up and move on their own. This would eliminate the need for people to re-invent this wheel, and make it easier for people to explore much more interesting dynamic animation techniques. I believe that this will make for better, more interesting and fun games in the future, as developers will be freed to spend their time developing innovative gameplay using this technology rather than struggling to create it (and stopping at limp rag dolls when they could do so much more).

Similar projects include NaturalMotion's Euphoria (a proprietary closed-source solution that is expensive to license, a barrier to entry for many students and hobbyists) and a platform for controller-based animation research called DANCE (open-source, but commercial use is prohibited -- a barrier to entry for those who would like to develop game applications for sale). The library I am proposing would embrace all users by being free for both non-commercial and commercial use. A broader user base will also make for a stronger library, and indeed it is my hope that this will evolve to become the standard means for creating physically-based character animation in simulations and games (at least in the non-big-budget game development crowd).

This project was originally hosted at google code: https://code.google.com/p/react3d/

It is released under the MIT license.