Advanced Techniques in Physically-Based Animation

The physically-based simulation of rigid bodies, deformable solids and fluids is an important and active research topic in computer graphics and an essential part of many modern computer tools in a wide range of application areas such as virtual prototyping, animation software for digital production including special effects in film and animation movies, computer games, and training simulators – just to mention a few. In these application areas interactive simulations are often of particular interest, where a user can interact in real-time with the simulated bodies.

This lecture course introduces advanced techniques in the research area in physically-based animation. In particular, we will consider the following topics:

• mathematical foundations
• basics of rigid body simulations
• multibody simulations
  • simulation of joints and motors
  • collision and contact handling
  • friction
• simulation of deformable solids
  • basics
  • continuous material models
  • finite element method
• fluid simulation
• basics
• incompressible fluids
• viscosity
• boundary handling
• fracturing