Computer Animation 2nd Edition

Description

Driven by the demands of research and the entertainment industry, the techniques of animation are pushed to render increasingly complex objects with ever-greater life-like appearance and motion. This rapid progression of knowledge and technique impacts professional developers, as well as students. Developers must maintain their understanding of conceptual foundations, while their animation tools become ever more complex and specialized. The second edition of Rick Parent's Computer Animation is an excellent resource for the designers who must meet this challenge. The first edition established its reputation as the best technically oriented animation text. This new edition focuses on the many recent developments in animation technology, including fluid animation, human figure animation, and soft body animation. The new edition revises and expands coverage of topics such as quaternions, natural phenomenon, facial animation, and inverse kinematics. The book includes up-to-date discussions of Maya scripting and the Maya C++ API, programming on real-time 3D graphics hardware, collision detection, motion capture, and motion capture data processing.

* The leading text for animation courses that have a technical focus
* Includes companion site with contemporary animation examples drawn from research and entertainment, sample animations, and example code
* Decribes the key mathematical and algorithmic foundations of animation that provide the animator with a deep understanding and control of technique

CONTENTS:

1. Introduction

1.1 Perception
1.2 The Heritage of Animation
1.3 Animation Production
1.4 Computer Animation Production
1.5 A Brief History of Computer Animation
1.6 Chapter Summary
References

2. Technical Background

2.1 Spaces and Transformations
2.2 Orientation Representation
2.3 Chapter Summary
References

3. Interpolation

3.1 Interpolating Values
3.2 Controlling the Motion of a Point Along a Curve
3.3 Interpolation of Orientations
3.4 Working with Paths
3.5 Chapter Summary
References

4. Interpolation -Based Animation

4.1 Key-Frame Systems
4.2 Animation Languages
4.3 Deforming Objects
4.4 3D Shape Interpolation
4.5 Morphing (2D)
4.6 Chapter Summary
References

5. Kinematic Linkages

5.1 Hierarchical Modeling
5.2 Forward Kinematics
5.3 Inverse Kinematics
5.4 Chapter Summary
References

6. Motion Capture

6.1 Motion Capture Technologies
6.2 Processing the Images
6.3 Camera Calibration
6.4 3D Position Reconstruction
6.5 Fitting to the Skeleton
6.6 Output from Motion Capture Systems
6.7 Manipulating Motion Capture Data
6.8 Chapter Summary
References

7. Physically Based Animation

7.1 Basic Physics - A Review
7.2 Spring Meshes
7.3 Particle Systems
7.4 Rigid Body Simulation
7.5 Enforcing Soft and Hard Constraints
7.6 Chapter Summary
References

8. Fluids: Liquids & Gases

8.1 Specific Fluid Models
8.2 Computational Fluid Dynamics
8.3 Chapter Summary
References

9. Modeling and Animating Human Figures

9.1 Overview of Virtual Human Representation
9.2 Reaching and Grasping
9.3 Walking
9.4 Getting Dressed Up
9.5 Chapter Summary
References

10. Facial Animation

10.1 The Human Face
10.2 Facial Models
10.3 Animating the Face
10.4 Lip-Sync Animation
10.5 Chapter Summary
References

11. Modeling Behavior

11.1 Knowing the Environment
11.2 Aggregate Behavior
11.3 Primitive Behaviors
11.4 Modeling Intelligent Behavior
11.5 Crowd Management
11.6 Chapter Summary
References

12. Special Models for Animation

12.1 Implicit Surfaces
12.2 Plants
12.3 Subdivision Surfaces
12.4 Chapter Summary
References

App A. Rendering Issues

A.1 Double Buffering
A.2 Compositing
A.3 Displaying Moving Objects: Motion Blur
A.4 Drop Shadows
A.5 Billboarding and Impostors
A.6 Summary
References

App B. Background Information and Techniques

B.1 Vectors and Matrices
B.2 Geometric Computations
B.3 Transformations
B.4 Denevit and Hartenberg Representation for Linked Appendages
B.5 Interpolating and Approximating Curves
B.6 Randomness
B.7 Physics Primer
B.8 Numerical Integration Techniques
B.9 Standards for Moving Pictures
B.10 Camera Calibration
References