CIS 660: Advanced Topics in

Computer Graphics and Animation

 

Primer Topics (Spring 2005)

The following seminar primer topics are suggested:

·       Character animation techniques (keyframe, motion capture, procedural)

·       Facial  animation techniques, including lipsynching) (keyframe, motion capture, procedural)

·       Physically-based modeling and simulation

·       Shaders – Pixel and Vertex (hair, fur, ice, shadows, etc)

·       Natural phenomena -- fluids, water

·       Natural phenomena -- particles/smoke/explosions

·       Game AI

·       Artificial life (L-Systems, genetic algorithms, etc.)

·       Behavioral animation and Intelligent Agents (flocks, formations, crowds, etc)

·       Advanced 3D modeling techniques

·       Rendering and lighting (global illumination, ray tracing, photon mapping, etc.) illumination

·       Graphics hardware

·       Real-time 3D game and physics engines

·       Clothing simulation

·       Renderman

·       Image-based modeling and rendering

The materials required as preparation for the primer presentation include:

·       A written, annotated bibliography of source materials. The list of sources must be submitted to and checked by the instructor no less than one week before the presentation. The annotated bibliography must be distributed to each member of the class on the day of the presentation

·       An oral presentation of the methods, in suitable detail that we can understand the common algorithms used.

·       Movie or game examples illustrating the methods and variants on the algorithms or their appearance.

Many movies are on hand in the HMS Lab*. The Internet also is a great source of material. Start from the production company or a fan club. Also check out “Cinefex”, which describes in considerable detail special effects for various movies -- but not the particulars of the algorithms used. You will have to track that down through other sources such as books and the Computer Graphics literature. For example, the extensive online bibliography maintained by SIGGRAPH at: http://www.siggraph.org/publications/bibliography/.

 

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