ANIMATION

&
VIRTUAL REALITY

2º Ciclo em:
Engenharia Informática
Design e Desenvolvimento de Jogos Digitais

DI – UBI 2014/2015

PROGRAM

! Computer Animation vs Traditional Animation

! Basic Techniques
! Advanced Techniques
! Modeling and Animating Articulated Models
! Animating Natural Phenomena
! Virtual Reality/Virtual Environments

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Chapter 5

! Animating Natural Phenomena

! Plants
! Water

! Gas

Animating Natural Phenomena

! Plants

2
Animating Natural Phenomena

! Among the most difficult objects to model and

animate:
! Plants are the only ones with well-defined surface;

! The complexity of modeling them derives from their branching

structure and their growth process.

Plants

! They grow from a single source point, developing a

branching structure over time while the individual
structural elements elongate.

! Different models:
! Particle systems
! Fractals

! L-systems

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Plants (cont.)

! The topology of a plant is characterized by a

recursive branching structure.
! Plants share with fractals the characteristics of
self-similarity under scale.

Basic branching schemes

Plants (cont.)

Branching structures of interest in two dimensions

4
Plants (cont.)

! An encoding of the branching structure of a given

plan is one of the objectives of plant modeling.

! A plant, being a living thing, is subject to changes

due to growth.

! So, we are interested in the modeling and

animation of a growth process.

Plants (cont.)

! The structural components of plants are:

! Roots – are typically not of interest when modeling the
visual aspects of plants;
! Stems – grow upward;

! Buds – are the embryonic

state of stem, leaves, and flowers;
! Leaves – are attached in a regular pattern at nodes along
the stem, and grow from buds (alternate, opposite, or
whorled);
! Flowers – grow from buds.

5
Plants (cont.)

! Branching is the production of subordinate stems from

a main stem (the axis):
! Bifurcating into two equally
growing stems (dichotomous);

! Stem grows laterally from the

main axis while the main axis
continues to grow in its original
direction (monopodial)

Plants (cont.)

! Growth influences
! Lineage – age;
! Cellular descent – nutrients and hormones;

! Tropisms – that change the direction of a plant’s growth

(e.g., phototropism – the blending of a stem toward light);
! Obstacles – collision response: temporary or permanent.

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Plants (cont.)

! L-Systems
! Mathematical models of plants development by the
biologist Aristid Lindenmayer (the L in L-systems).

! L-systems are parallel rewriting systems.

! The simplest class of L-systems is deterministic and context

free; it is called D0L-system.

Plants (cont.)

! D0L-system
! Production rules: αi -> βi
" αi is a single symbol
" βi is a sequence of symbols

! Axiom - initial string

! Parallel rewriting rules

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Plants (cont.)

! Example
!S # ABA Axiom S
!A# XX ABA
!B# TT XXTTXX

Production rules String sequence

Plants (cont.)

! Geometric Interpretation of L-systems

! Geometric Replacement
! Turtle graphics

! Example
! S # ABA Axiom S
! A# XX ABA
! B# TT XXTTXX

Production rules String sequence

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Plants (cont.)
! Geometric Replacement
XXTTXX

X:
T:

X
X
T
T
X
X

Plants (cont.)

! Turtle graphics
! A geometry is produced from the string by interpreting
the symbols of the string as drawing commands given to
a simple cursor called turtle.

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 Plants (cont.)

! Turtle graphics commands

F – Move forward a distance d while drawing a line.
Its state will change from (x,y,α) to
(x+d*cos α, y+d*sin α, α)
f – Move forward a distance d without drawing a
line. Its state will change as above.
+ – Turn left by an angle δ. Its state will change
from (x,y, α) to (x,y, α + δ)
- – Turn right by an angle δ. Its state will change
from (x,y, α) to (x,y, α - δ).

Plants (cont.)

! Turtle graphics example

! S# ABA S $ axiom
! A# FF ABA
! B# TT FFTTFF
! T# -F++F- FF-F++F--F++F-FF

! d=
! δ = 45º

! Initial state (0,0,0)

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Plants (cont.)

! Turtle graphics example

d=
δ = 45º
FF-F++F--F++F-FF
Initial state (0,0,0)

F
F
-F++F-
-F++F-
F
F

Plants (cont.)
! L-Systems

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Plants (cont.)

! Bracketed L-Systems
! Brackets
" Push and pop states
" Multiple types of brackets
" Brackets have attachment semantics
! Example (non deterministic)
S # FAF
A # [+FBF]
A# F
B# [-FBF]
B# F

Plants (cont.)

! Bracketed L-Systems
! Push and pop states

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Plants (cont.)

! Bracketed
L-Systems

Plants (cont.)

! Bracketed
L-Systems

Non
Deterministic Deterministic

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Plants (cont.)

! Bracketed L-Systems - Properties

! Attributes
" Reduce size based on branching level
" Color
" line width
" line length
" …

! Track string development => growth process

Plants (cont.)

! Stochastic L-Systems
! Assign a user-specified probability to each production so that
the probabilities assigned to productions with the same left-
hand side sum to one.

S1.0 # FAF
A0.8 # [+FBF] (left branches)
A0.2# F
B0.6# [-FBF] (right branches)
B0.4# F

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Plants (cont.)

! Context-Sensitive L-Systems
The predecessor of A
is
T or F

S # FAT S
A > T # [+FBF] FAT
A>F#F F[+FBF]F
B # [-FAF] F[+F[-FAF]F]F
T#F F[+F[-FFF]F]F

Plants (cont.)

! Animating Plant Growth

! There are three types of animation in plants:
" Flexible movement of structure (e.g., wind);
" Changes in topology due to growth process;
" Elongation of existing structures.

! The topological changes are captured by

L-Systems (production rules).
! Elongation can be modeled by productions of the form F
# FF (units equals!)

See video cotton3d.avi

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Plants (cont.)

! Parametric L-systems
! Example
S # A(0)
A(t) # A(t+0.01)
A(t): t>=1.0 # F
" The symbol A has a parameter t associated with it.
The productions create the symbol A with a parameter value 0 and
then increase the parametric value in increments of 0.01 until
reaches 1.0.
At this point the symbol turns into an F.

Plants (cont.)

! Timed L-systems
! Add two more concepts:
" A global time variable;
" Local age value.

(υ0, β0) # ( (υ1,α1), (υ2, α2), … , (υn, αn) )

Terminal age Axiom: (A,0)

(A,3) # (S,0) [+(B,0)] (S,0)
Lifetime, βi-αi >0
(B,2) # (S,0)

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Plants (cont.)

! Interacting with the Environment

! The environment can influence plant growth in many ways:

" Physical obstacles;

" Wind;
" Gravity;
" Nutrients, moisture from soil;
" Sunlight: length of day, shadows

Animating Natural Phenomena

! Water

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Animating Natural Phenomena

! Among the most difficult objects to model and

animate:
! Water, when relatively still, has a well-defined surface;
however, it changes its shapes as it moves.
! In the case of ocean waves, features on the water’s surface
move, but the water itself does not travel.
! Besides, water can travel from one place to another (e.g.
river).

Water

! Presents a particular challenge for computer

animation because its appearance and motion take
various forms.
! Water can be modeled as a still, rigid-surface to which
ripples can be added as display attributes.
! In ocean waves, it is assumed that there is no transport of
water even though the waves travel along the surface in
forms that vary from sinusoidal to cycloidal.
! Breaking, foaming, and splashing of waves are added on
top of the model in a post processing step.

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Water (cont.)

! Still Waters and Small-Amplitude Waves

! The simplest way to model water is merely to assign the
color blue to anything below a given height.

! A flat blue plane at the height of the water can be used to

represent the water’s surface.
" The normal vector perturbation can be used to simulate the
appearance of small amplitude waves.
" A sinusoidal function is used to modify the direction of the surface’s
normal.

Water (cont.)

Normal vector displacement versus height displacement

! See Video – dolrotate.mpg

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Water (cont.)

! One of the assumptions used to model ocean waves

is that there in no transport of water.

! However, in many situations, such as a stream of

water running downhill, it is useful to model how
water travels from one location to another.
! The Navier-Stokes equations, which describe flow through
a volume, can be used.

Water (cont.)
! Blender

Wave2.mov

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Animating Natural Phenomena

! Gas

Animating Natural Phenomena

! Among the most difficult objects to model and

animate:
! Gas (fire, smoke, and clouds) have no well-defined surface;
! They are inherently volumetric models, although surface-
based techniques have been applied with limited success.

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Gas
! Modeling gaseous phenomena (smoke, clouds, fire) is
particularly challenging because:
! Gas has no definitive geometry;
! Its modeling, rendering and animation are often
interrelated.

Gas (cont.)
! There are three approach to modeling gas:

! Grid-based methods;

! Particle-based methods;

! Hybrid methods.

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Gas (cont.)

! Grid-based methods
! Decomposes space into individual cells;
! The gas into and out of each cell is calculated.
" The density of gas in each cell is updated from time step to time
step.

" The density of each cell is used to determine the visibility and
illumination of the gas during rendering.

" Attributes of the gas within a cell, such as velocity, acceleration, and
density can be used to track the gas as it travels from cell to cell

Gas (cont.)

! Grid-based methods
…
" The flow out of a cell can be computed based on the cell velocity,
the size of the cell, and the cell density.

" The flow into a cell is determined by distributing the densities out of
adjacent cells.

" External forces, such as wind and obstacles, are used to modify the
acceleration of the particles within a cell.

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Gas (cont.)

! Particle-based methods
! Particles or globs of gas are tracked as they progress
through space.

" The particles can be rendered individually, or

" They can be rendered as spheres of gas with a given density.

! Particles are assigned masses, and external forces can be

easily incorporated by updating particle acceleration and,
subsequently, velocities.

Gas (cont.)

! Particle-based methods
…
! The advantage of this technique is that it is similar to rigid
body dynamics and therefore the equations are relatively
simple and familiar.

! The disadvantage of this approach is that a large number

of particles are needed to simulate a dense gas.

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Gas (cont.)

! Hybrid methods
! Some models of gas trace particles through a spatial grid.
! Particles are passed from cell to cell as they traverse the
interesting space.
! The display attributes of individual cells are determined by
the number and type of particles contained in the cell at
the time of display.
! The particles are used to carry and distributes attributes
through the grid, and then grid is used to produce the
display.

Gas (cont.)

! Clouds – Early approaches

! Many early approaches used semitransparent surfaces to
produce convincing images of clouds;
! Fractal synthesis of parallel plane models to produce
images of clouds seen from a distance;
! Fourier synthesis to control the transparency of large,
hollow ellipsoids;
! Overlapping spheres to define the general cloud shape +
transparency of spheres + cloud texture (Maya™)

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Gas (cont.)

! Clouds
! Volumetric Cloud Modeling
" Cumulus clouds
" Simulated using spherical
or elliptical implicit primitives.
" …
! Particle Systems
" Commonly used to simulate the volumetric gases, such as smoke.
" The difficulty with using particle system for cloud modeling is the
massive number of particles that are necessary.

Gas (cont.)

! Fire
! It has all the complexities of
smoke and clouds and added
complexity of very active internal
processes that produce light and
motion and create rapidly varying
display attributes.

! Particle systems provide effective, yet computationally

attractive, approaches to fire.

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Gas (cont.)
! Blender

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