DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. CN2023102521981, filed on 20230306.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (US 20220274020 A1, hereinafter Xu) in view of Luo et al. (US 20180357808 A1, hereinafter).
Regarding Claim 1, Xu teaches: a virtual character switching method, performed by a computing device (Xu, Paragraph [0006], "An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method for switching a game <read on virtual> character"; Xu, Paragraph [0062], "the method is applied to a computer device").
displaying a virtual character in a first style [[constructed based on first attribute data, ]] an action of the virtual character in the first style being controlled by a controller (Xu, Paragraph [0010], "receiving, when a first character is on a game interface of a game process, a character switching instruction on a game interface that displays a first character"; [0070], "if the player makes a leftward movement operation on the virtual wheel <read on controller> on the game interface, the first character can move to the left side of the game interface in real time in response to the leftward movement operation"). [[ and the first attribute data is associated with the virtual character in the first style ]] obtaining second attribute data in response to a switching operation in a process of displaying the virtual character in the first style [[the second attribute data is associated with the virtual character in a second style]], the second style being different from the first style (Xu, Paragraph [0008], "acquiring character data corresponding to a second character <read on virtual character in a second style> according to the character switching instruction <read on switching operation>"; [0059], "switching the first character to the second character is generally implemented between two game characters"). replacing the first attribute data with the second attribute data (Xu, Paragraph [0077], "Only the character data of the second character needs to be loaded, and there is no need to load the map background"). switching the virtual character in the first style to the virtual character in the second style constructed based on the second attribute data, an action of the virtual character in the second style being controlled by the controller (Xu, Paragraph [0009], "switching the first character to the second character on the game interface according to the character data"; Xu, Paragraph [0067], "directly switching the first character to the second character according to the character switching instruction, character switching can be completed without multiple interface jump operations"; Xu, Paragraph [0077], "switching the first character to the second character at a current position of the first character. The first character is switched to the second character at the current position of the first character, such that the game interface can still use the map background of the current first character").
But Xu does not explicitly disclose constructed based on first attribute data, … and the first attribute data is associated with the virtual character in the first style— Xu refers to "character data" as image/health/output values without describing structural construction or formal data-to-character association…the second attribute data is associated with the virtual character in a second style
However, Luo teaches constructed based on first attribute data" … "first attribute data is associated with the virtual character in the first style (Luo, Paragraph [0005], "obtaining first bone data for a virtual target and first rig data for the virtual target, based on the animation generation instruction"; [0030], "The first bone data used for the virtual target may be bone data publicly used by each virtual target, for example, all virtual characters in an animation use the same first bone data"; Luo, Paragraph [0033], "Rig data is data used to render a visual element according to bone data … The mapping data is used to map the rig image into the vertex grid and map a vertex in the vertex grid into a corresponding bone in the bone data" it is noted the virtual character is structurally constructed from bone data and rig data attribute set associated with that character); second attribute data is associated with the virtual character in a second style (Luo, Paragraph [0005], "obtaining … second bone data for an additional element, and second rig data for the additional element, based on the action identifier" — i.e., a separate attribute set associated with a different visual outcome).
Xu and Luo are analogous because both are in the field of virtual-character rendering and display on a terminal/computer device. Xu directs switching characters on a game interface; Luo directs constructing/rendering virtual characters from structured attribute data on a terminal. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate data-driven character-construction taught by Luo into modified invention of Xu such that such that Xu's first and second "character data" is implemented as Luo's first/second attribute-data sets associated with their respective characters, and the displayed character is constructed therefrom. The motivation is to combine reusable virtual-target data with action/element data to reduce consumption of storage resources.
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches the first attribute data comprises first bone data (Luo, Paragraph [0030], "The first bone data used for the virtual target may be bone data publicly used by each virtual target, for example, all virtual characters in an animation use the same first bone data"), obtaining the first bone data by adjusting basic bone data based on first exclusive bone data (Luo, Paragraph [0030], "The first bone data used for the virtual target may be bone data publicly used by each virtual target <read on basic bone data>… The first bone data can further be specified by the animation generation instruction <read on adjusted/specified per character>"; [0057], "different users can be configured with different first bone data <read on first exclusive bone data>, so that the user can self-define the virtual target"; [0041], "the first bone data includes a bone state and a layer relationship between bones. The step 306 includes: adding a bone in the second bone data to a bone in the first bone data according to the second bone data; and adjusting the layer relationship between the additional bone and the corresponding bone in the first bone data to obtain the fused bone data" <read on adjusting bone data based on another bone-data set to obtain a resulting bone data>), wherein the first exclusive bone data indicates a body shape or a skeleton of the virtual character in the first style (Luo, Paragraph [0032], "A bone in first bone data used for the virtual character may include a head, headwear, a hair front film, a hair back film, a hair left film, a hair right film, eyes, a mouth, back rig, a left upper arm, a left lower arm, a right upper arm, a right lower arm, a belt, an upper garment prop, a pants left film, a pants right film, a skirt, a tail, and the like" <read on body shape or skeleton>; [0031], "The bone data is data that describes a relationship between bones. The bone data may include a bone state and a layer relationship between bones. The bone state includes, for example, a bone position, a bone direction, and a bone length" <read on body-shape/skeleton-defining parameters>).
Luo and Xu are analogous since both deal with rendering and displaying virtual characters on a terminal/computer device. Xu provided a way of switching between two characters on the same game interface while preserving the player's controls and reducing data-loading. Luo provided a way of constructing a virtual character's display from structured bone data, with publicly-used (common/basic) bone data alongside per-character specified bone data that defines the character's body parts (skeleton).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the layered bone-data construction taught by Luo into the modified invention of Xu such that the first character's first attribute data includes first bone data obtained by adjusting a publicly-used basic bone data using a character-specific (exclusive) bone data set that indicates the first character's body shape/skeleton. The motivation is to reduce consumption of storage resources by sharing a common base bone template across virtual characters while only persisting per-character deltas, as discussed by Luo in Paragraph [0047].
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches obtaining second exclusive bone data indicating the body shape or the skeleton of the virtual character in the second style (Luo, Paragraph [0057], "different users can be configured with different first bone data <read on, when applied to the second character, second exclusive bone data>, so that the user can self-define the virtual target"; [0032], "A bone in first bone data used for the virtual character may include a head, headwear, a hair front film, a hair back film, a hair left film, a hair right film, eyes, a mouth, back rig, a left upper arm, a left lower arm, a right upper arm, a right lower arm, a belt, an upper garment prop, a pants left film, a pants right film, a skirt, a tail, and the like" <read on body shape or skeleton>), adjusting the basic bone data based on the second exclusive bone data, to obtain second bone data (Luo, Paragraph [0041], "adding a bone in the second bone data to a bone in the first bone data according to the second bone data; and adjusting the layer relationship between the additional bone and the corresponding bone in the first bone data to obtain the fused bone data" <read on adjusting basic bone data based on a second exclusive bone-data set to obtain second bone data>), the second attribute data comprising the second bone data (Luo, Paragraph [0005], "obtaining first bone data for a virtual target and first rig data for the virtual target, based on the animation generation instruction… obtaining action data, second bone data for an additional element, and second rig data for the additional element" <read on the obtained attribute set including the second bone data>).
As explained in rejection of claim 1, the obviousness for combining of bone-data construction scheme of Luo into Xu is provided above.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches wherein the adjusting the basic bone data to obtain the second bone data comprises: adjusting, based on a feature parameter of a first bone comprised in the second exclusive bone data, the feature parameter of the first bone comprised in the basic bone data to obtain the second bone data
(Luo, Paragraph [0042], "The second bone data can specify the bone in the second bone data to be added to a position of a bone system of the first bone data and specify the layer relationship opposite to related bones in the first bone data, to add the bone in the second bone data to the bone in the first bone data according to the second bone data and adjust the layer relationship of the related bones to obtain the fused bone data" <read on adjusting bone feature parameters of the basic data based on bone feature parameters of the exclusive data set>; [0041], "adding a bone in the second bone data to a bone in the first bone data according to the second bone data; and adjusting the layer relationship between the additional bone and the corresponding bone in the first bone data to obtain the fused bone data"). the feature parameter of the first bone being configured for specifying at least one of a size, a shape, a position, and an angle of the first bone (Luo, Paragraph [0031], "The bone state includes, for example, a bone position <read on a position>, a bone direction <read on an angle>, and a bone length <read on a size>";[0032], "A bone in first bone data used for the virtual character may include a head, headwear, a hair front film, a hair back film, a hair left film, a hair right film, eyes, a mouth, back rig, a left upper arm, a left lower arm, a right upper arm, a right lower arm, a belt, an upper garment prop, a pants left film, a pants right film, a skirt, a tail, and the like" <read on a shape — each enumerated bone identifier inherently designates a body-part shape, e.g., head-shaped, arm-shaped, skirt-shaped>”).
As explained in rejection of claim 1, the obviousness for combining of bone-data construction scheme of Luo into Xu is provided above.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches the first attribute data comprises first model data associated with an appearance of the virtual character in the first style (Xu, Paragraph [0074], "the character data includes at least one of the following data: image data <read on model data associated with an appearance> of the second character, health point data of the second character, and output value data of the second character" — applied symmetrically to the first character per [0081], "a data acquiring module 102, configured to acquire character data corresponding to a second character … wherein the character data includes at least one of the following data: image data of the second character, health point data of the second character, and output value data of the second character"),the obtaining the second attribute data comprises: obtaining second model data associated with the appearance of the virtual character in the second style (Xu, Paragraph [0008], "acquiring character data corresponding to a second character <read on second model data> according to the character switching instruction"; [0028], "the character data includes at least one of image data of the second character <read on model data associated with the appearance of the second-style character>, health point data of the second character, and output value data of the second character"), wherein the second attribute data comprising the second model data (Xu, Paragraph [0065], "S12: acquire character data corresponding to a second character according to the character switching instruction" — the acquired character data, including the image data, constitutes the second attribute data).
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches wherein each appearance resource comprised in the second model data replaces each appearance resource comprised in the first model data (Xu, Paragraph [0077], "Only the character data of the second character needs to be loaded, and there is no need to load the map background”; “The first character is switched to the second character at the current position of the first character, such that the game interface can still use the map background of the current first character"; [0008], "acquiring character data corresponding to a second character according to the character switching instruction"),through asynchronous loading (Xu, Paragraph [0058], "When receiving a character switching instruction, the user terminal 110 sends the character switching instruction to the server 120, such that the server 120 acquires character data according to the character switching instruction and sends the character data to the user terminal 110. The user terminal 110 switches the first character to the second character on the game interface based on the character data sent by the server" <read on a network-based, non-blocking load — asynchronous loading>; [0059], "a caching mechanism is introduced before the character switching. That is, a map background on the game interface is cached in the user terminal 110 or the server 120. When the character switching occurs, the cached map background can be found directly based on the map background during the character switching, so that historical rendering data mapped by the cached map background will be quickly used as virtual rendering data of the map background to be rendered in the current switching" <read on caching enabling asynchronous retrieval>).
Luo further teaches through asynchronous loading (Luo, Paragraph [0083], "action data corresponding to an action identifier, second bone data used for an additional element, and corresponding second rig data can be instantly obtained by using a network. First rig data used for a virtual target can be instantly obtained by using the network. First bone data can be obtained and buffered from the network at first obtaining and the buffered first bone data can be directly obtained at next obtaining" <read on buffered network loading — asynchronous in operation>).
Luo and Xu are analogous since both deal with rendering and displaying virtual characters on a terminal/computer device. Xu provided the client-server character-data fetching and caching workflow that underlies the resource replacement during switching.
Luo provided the network-buffered data-acquisition pattern in which resources are obtained from the network and buffered for non-blocking subsequent retrieval.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate Luo's network-buffered loading into the client-server fetching of Xu such that each appearance resource of the second character is loaded asynchronously and replaces the corresponding appearance resource of the first character. The motivation is to avoid blocking the main thread during character switching as discussed by Xu in Paragraph [0067].
Regarding Claim 7 the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches the first attribute data comprises first animation data (Luo, Paragraph [0005], "obtaining first bone data for a virtual target and first rig data for the virtual target, based on the animation generation instruction, obtaining an action identifier, and obtaining action data <read on animation data>"), the first animation data associated with the action of the virtual character in the first style (Luo, Paragraph [0046], "The action data records data of how to control a bone of a virtual target and a bone of the additional element to change. Changing information of the bone of the virtual target and the bone of the additional element in each animation frame can be recorded according to a time sequence"; [0037], "The action data is a basis of controlling the virtual target and the additional element to move, including information such as a position of a bone in each animation dram recorded according to a time sequence, a direction, the length, and the like"), wherein the obtaining second animation data associated with the action of the virtual character in the second style (Luo, Paragraph [0005], "obtaining action data, second bone data for an additional element, and second rig data for the additional element, based on the action identifier" — i.e., a separate action-data set is obtainable for a different virtual target on the basis of an action identifier; [0034], "An action identifier is used to only identify a corresponding action. The action refers to an action performed by a virtual target and an additional element"), the second attribute data comprising the second animation data (Luo, Paragraph [0036], "Step 304: Obtain action data corresponding to the action identifier, second bone data used for an additional element, and corresponding second rig data" — the obtained attribute set includes the action/animation data).
Luo and Xu are analogous since both deal with rendering and animating virtual characters on a terminal/computer device for display. Xu provided a way of switching between two characters on the same game interface while preserving the player's controls and reducing data-load. Luo provided a way of constructing a virtual character's display from structured attribute data including action/animation data, so that varied actions can be rendered without storing complete animation frames. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to incorporate the action/animation-data portion of the attribute-data scheme taught by Luo into the modified invention of Xu such that each character's attribute data includes animation data associated with that character's action, and switching from the first to the second character includes obtaining the second character's animation data..
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches determining a first action currently performed by the virtual character in the first style (Luo, Paragraph [0034], "An action identifier is used to only identify a corresponding action. The action refers to an action performed by a virtual target and an additional element. An animation generation instruction can specify the action identifier and a terminal can determine the action identifier <read on determining the currently-performed action via its identifier> according to the animation generation instruction"; [0046], "The action data records data of how to control a bone of a virtual target and a bone of the additional element to change. Changing information of the bone of the virtual target and the bone of the additional element in each animation frame can be recorded according to a time sequence. The terminal controls the fused bone data to change with time according to the recorded changing information in the action data" <read on the system tracking the action currently being performed by the virtual target>), selecting, as the second animation data, animation data corresponding to the first action from a plurality of pieces of candidate animation data corresponding to the second style (Luo, Paragraph [0036], "Step 304: Obtain action data corresponding to the action identifier, second bone data used for an additional element, and corresponding second rig data" <read on selecting action data by matching action identifier>; [0047], "Different actions in different animation can be distinguished according to different action identifiers. The virtual target, the action data of various actions, and the additional element are combined to implement colorful animation" <read on a plurality of candidate animation data items each identified by an action identifier>; [0061], "the terminal can display the optional action option in a current session window of an instant messaging application" [0062], "the terminal can display multiple optional action options in the current ses-sion window in an array form" <read on a plurality of candidate animation data corresponding to a virtual target>).
As explained in rejection of claim 1, the obviousness for combining of bone-data construction scheme of Luo into Xu is provided above.
Regarding Claim 9 the combination of Xu and Luo teaches the invention in Claim 1.
The combination further teaches obtaining the second attribute data in response to the switching operation in a process of controlling, by the controller, the virtual character in the first style to move or fight with another virtual character (Xu, Paragraph [0054], "Third Personal Shooter (TPS) games are shooter games from God's perspective, in which players can see their characters walking <read on move> and making attacking movements <read on fight with another virtual character>"; [0070], "if the player makes a leftward movement operation on the virtual wheel <read on controller> on the game interface, the first character can move to the left side of the game interface in real time in response to the leftward movement operation. … When the first character is in the controllable state, the user terminal can receive the character switching instruction on the game interface that displays the first character"; [0008], "acquiring character data <read on second attribute data> corresponding to a second character according to the character switching instruction <read on switching operation>").
Regarding Claim 10, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of claim 1, but in a device. As shown in the rejection, the combination of Xu and Luo disclose the limitations of claims 1. Additionally, Xu discloses an system that maps to Fig. 10 and Paragraph [0091] (Xu, Fig. 10, Element Processor, Element Memory, Paragraph [0091], “the computer device includes a processor, a memory, a network interface, an input apparatus and a display screen that are connected through a system bus”) Thus, Claim 10 is met by Xu according to the mapping presented in the rejection of claims 1, given the method corresponds to the device.
Regarding Claim 11, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 2 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 12, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 3 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 13, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 5 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 14, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 6 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 15, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 7 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 16, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 8 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 17, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 9 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 18, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of claim 1 and the combination of Xu and Luo teaches all the limitations as of Claim 1. And Xu discloses these features can be implemented on a computer-readable storage medium (Xu, Paragraph [0093], “The computer readable storage medium stores a computer executable instruction, wherein the computer executable instruction causes a computer to perform steps of the foregoing method for switching a game character”).
Regarding Claim 19, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 2 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 20, it recites limitations similar in scope to the limitations of Claim 5 and therefore is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/YuJang Tswei/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2614
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