CS 395T - Computer Animation for Synthetic Characters

CS 395T - Computer Animation for Synthetic Characters

Fall 2005

Tu/Th 5:00pm-6:30pm
TAY 2.106
Instructor: Okan Arikan

E-mail: okan 'at' cs.utexas.edu
Office: ACES 2.110
Office hours: Tu/Th 4:00pm-5:00pm

!!! Important !!!

This is a preliminary web site. It will evolve throughout the semester. Please make sure you check it frequently.

Course description:

Synthetic characters are ubiquitous in computer games, movies and training simulations. It is important to animate these characters in a natural way. This task is particularly difficult because people are very sensitive to how people move and to the underlying physics of motion. Because of this difficulty, automatically animating synthetic characters is a very active research area. This seminar will explore the state-of the art in character motion synthesis. We will analyze research, read / present / discuss research papers, and relate this work to the existing technologies used in the entertainment / simulation industry.

The goal of this class is to develop an understanding of the state of the art in character animation research. Throughout the semester, we will read papers and analyze the ideas and the machinery that they use. Hopefully, you will be able to take some of these ideas and machinery and apply them in your own research.

Class format:

The class will be taught in a seminar-style format. Some classes (especially at the beginning) will be lectures presented by the instructors, but most classes will consist of students presenting one or two papers. After each paper, we will discuss the work and its relationship to other papers in animation and the current practices in the entertainment industry (games, movies).

Grading:

% 20 class/discussion participation
% 20 paper presentations
% 40 final project
% 10 homework 1 (Out 9/7/2005 - Due 9/29/2005)
% 10 homework 2 (Out 10/13/2005 - Due 11/10/2005)

* Code of conduct: *

Every student must read and agree with the code of conduct outlined at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/CodeOfConduct.html. You must report any piece of written material (text or software) that comes from someone other than yourself. Note that you are not allowed to use any software that overlaps with the objectives of homework and projects. Depending on the class size, some homework or projects may be done in teams. There will be a discussion of policies related to group projects and homework in the class and this web page will be updated accordingly.

Final project: (Updated)

Students will implement a project of their choosing. This project needs to relate to the character animation topics discussed in the class and it must be approved by the professor. Since this is a research oriented class, a good project involves new ideas or combines previously proposed ideas in a novel way.

What to turn in: You must turn in a report outlining what you did for your final project (along with your source code / videos and relevant results). This report must focus on 3 things:

Previous work in the area
Be thorough and cite all relevant previous work. Please also discuss what you think of the papers you cite.
What you did
Be thorough and include all detail. Describe what the most difficult part was and what you learned. This is a feedback for me as well as you, so tell me what you wish you knew before starting project too.
What is novel in your project
Describe the new things in that you implemented or new ideas that you developed during this project. You should also describe what you are proud of in this project and what you want me to focus on.

After you turn in your project, I will meet with you and discuss your project. This is an opportunity for you to expand your project in the future. There is no minimum or maximum length limit for this report. Include everything that you want me to read and comment on.

Prerequisites:

C/C++ programming skills
Some mathematical sophistication on calculus and linear algebra
Talk to the professor if you're in doubt

Example papers:

You can pick the papers you will present from this categorized list. This list is provided for your convenience. As long as you get the professor's approval, you are free to present any relevant research paper of your choosing.

Tentative course calendar:

Week	Tuesday	Thursday
1		September 1 Introduction, course description History of animation Animation pipeline
2	September 6 Motion representation Rotations Inverse kinematics Keyframing	September 8 Physically based simulation Ordinary differential equations Particle systems Homework 1 isout
3	September 13 Rigid body simulation Equations of motion Collision detection / handling Spacetime optimization / variational methods Robot controllers	September 15 Motion capture technology Motion editing / cleanup Data driven / statistical methods Discussion: Spacetime Constraints - A. Witkin, M. Kass, Siggraph 1988, Video
4	September 20 Character rigging Secondary motion Cloth Hair Liquid Discussion: Motion Editing with Spacetime Constraints - Video Efficient Synthesis of Physically Valid Human Motion - Video	September 22 Paper presentations Discussion: Synthesis of Complex Dynamic Character Motion from Simple Examples
5	September 27 Paper presentations Discussion: Stable Fluids Visual Simulation of Smoke	September 29 Paper presentations Homework 1 is due
6	October 4 Paper presentations Discussion: Simulating Water and Smoke with an Octree Data Structure	October 6 Paper presentations Discussion: Motion Synthesis from Annotations Pushing People Around
7	October 11 Paper presentations Discussion: (Inwoo) Dynamic Response for Motion Capture Animation Motion capture-driven simulations that hit and react	October 13 Paper presentations Homework 2 is out Discussion: (Nikhil) Cognitive Modeling: Knowledge, Reasoning and Planning for Intelligent Characters ALife Journal Article on Artificial Fishes
8	October 18 Paper presentations Discussion: (Chris L.) Performance Animation from Low-dimensional Control Signals Interactive Control of Avatars Animated with Human Motion Data	October 20 Paper presentations Discussion: (Alexandre) Practical Animation of Liquids Controlling Fluid Animation
9	October 25 Paper presentations Discussion: (Chris B.) Evolving Virtual Creatures Dynamic Simulation of Autonomous Legged Locomotion	October 27 Paper presentations Discussion: (Ikrima) Large Steps in Cloth Simulation Stable but Responsive Cloth
10	November 1 Paper presentations Discussion: (Nikhil) Stable Real-Time Deformations Meshless Deformations Based on Shape Matching	November 3 Paper presentations Discussion: (Chris L.) Snap Together Motion Motion Modeling for On-Line Locomotion Synthesis
11	November 8 Paper presentations Discussion: (Inwoo) Motion Capture Assisted Animation: Texturing and Synthesis Style Machines	November 10 Paper presentations Homework 2 is due Discussion: (Alexandre) DyRT: Dynamic Response Texture for Real Time Deformation Simulation With Graphics Hardware Interactive Deformations Using Modal Analysis with Constraints
12	November 15 Paper presentations Discussion: (Chris B.) Anatomy-Based Modeling of the Human Musculature Automatic Determination of Facial Muscle Activations From Sparse Motion Capture Marker Data	November 17 Paper presentations Discussion: (Ikrima) Animating Explosions Smoke Simulation For Large Scale Phenomena
13	November 22 Paper presentations Discussion: (Inwoo) Adapting simulated behaviors for new characters Online Motion Retargeting	November 24 Thanksgiving holiday
14	November 29 Final projects due Final project presentations	December 1 Paper presentations Discussion: (Ikrima) Rigid Fluids Coupling Water and Smoke to Thin Deformable and Rigid Shells
15	December 6 Paper presentations Discussion: (Alexandre) Physically based modeling and animation of fire Structural modeling of flames for a production environment	December 8 Paper presentations Discussion: (Nikhil) NeuroAnimator: Fast Neural Network Emulation and Control of Physics-Based Models

Software:

VL vector/matrix library (C++)
FLTK for user interface design
OpenGL documentation/samples
NETLIB - lots of numerical algebra stuff
Open dynamics engine. A library for creating forward simulations involving rigid body dynamics (including articulated characters).

References:

Physically Based Modeling Course Notes
Authors: Andy Witkin, David Baraff, Michael Kass

Okan Arikan
Last updated: 11/30/2005