Physics-Based Animation

A Parallel SPH Implementation on Multi-core CPUs

It is usually difficult to resolve the fine details of turbulent flows, especially when targeting real-time applications. We present a novel, scalable turbulence method that uses a realistic energy model and an efficient particle representation that allows for the accurate and robust simulation of small-scale detail. We compute transport of turbulent energy using a complete two-equation k–e model with accurate production terms that allows us to capture anisotropic turbulence effects, which integrate smoothly into the base flow. We only require a very low grid resolution to resolve the underlying base flow. As we offload complexity from the fluid solver to the particle system, we can control the detail of the simulation easily by adjusting the number of particles, without changing the large scale behavior. In addition, no computations are wasted on areas that are not visible. We demonstrate that due to the design of our algorithm it is highly suitable for massively parallel architectures, and is able to generate detailed turbulent simulations with millions of particles at high framerates.

Scalable Fluid Simulation using Anisotropic Turbulence Particles

Moving garments and other cloth objects exhibit dynamic, complex wrinkles. Generating such wrinkles in a virtual environment currently requires either a time-consuming manual design process, or a computationally expensive simulation, often combined with accurate parameter-tuning requiring specialized animator skills. Our work presents an alternative approach for wrinkle generation which combines coarse cloth animation with a post-processing step for efficient generation of realistic-looking fine dynamic wrinkles. Our method uses the stretch tensor of the coarse animation output as a guide for wrinkle placement. To ensure temporal coherence, the placement mechanism uses a space-time approach allowing not only for smooth wrinkle appearance and disappearance, but also for wrinkle motion, splitting, and merging over time. Our method generates believable wrinkle geometry using specialized curve-based implicit deformers. The method is fully automatic and has a single user control parameter that enables the user to mimic different fabrics.

Animation Wrinkling: Augmenting Coarse Cloth Simulations with Realistic-Looking Wrinkles

We cull collisions between very large numbers of moving bodies using graphics processing units (GPUs). To perform massively parallel sweep-and-prune (SaP), we mitigate the great density of intervals along the axis of sweep by using principal component analysis to choose the best sweep direction, together with spatial subdivisions to further reduce the number of false positive overlaps. Our algorithm implemented entirely on GPUs using the CUDA framework can handle a million moving objects at interactive rates. As application of our algorithm, we demonstrate the real-time simulation of very large numbers of particles and rigid-body dynamics.

Real-Time Collision Culling of a Million Bodies on Graphics Processing Units

2d animation is a traditional but fascinating domain that has recently regained popularity both in animated movies and video games. This paper introduces a method for automatically converting a smooth sketched curve into a 2d dynamic curve at stable equilibrium under gravity. The curve can then be physically animated to produce secondary motions in 2d animations or simple video games. Our approach proceeds in two steps. We first present a new technique to fit a smooth piecewise circular arcs curve to a sketched curve. Then we show how to compute the physical parameters of a dynamic rod model (super-circle) so that its stable rest shape under gravity exactly matches the fitted circular arcs curve. We demonstrate the interactivity and controllability of our approach on various examples where a user can intuitively setup efficient and precise 2d animations by specifying the input geometry.

Stable Inverse Dynamic Curves

We address the problem of Multi-Phase (or Many-Phase) Fluid simulations. We propose to use the regional level set (RLS) that can handle a large number of regions and materials, and hence, is appropriate for simulations of many immiscible materials. Towards this goal, we improve the interpolation of the RLS, and develop the regional level set graph (RLSG), which registers connected components and their contacts, and tracks their properties such as region volumes, film life times, and film material types, as regions evolve, merge, split, or are squeezed into films. Using RLSG’s tracking feature, we generate particles from tiny regions or rupturing films.

Multi-Phase Fluid Simulation Using Regional Level Sets

We present a new method to create and preserve the turbulent details generated around moving objects in SPH fluid. In our approach, a high-resolution overlapping grid is bounded to each object and translates with the object. The turbulence formation is modeled by resolving the local flow around objects using a hybrid SPH-FLIP method. Then these vortical details are carried on SPH particles flowing through the local region and preserved in the global field in a synthetic way. Our method provides a physically plausible way to model the turbulent details around both rigid and deformable objects in SPH fluid, and can efficiently produce animations of complex gaseous phenomena with rich visual details.

Creating and Preserving Vortical Details in SPH Fluid

In this paper we describe a fast strain-limiting method that allows stiff, incompliant materials to be simulated efficiently. Unlike prior approaches, which act on springs or individual strain components, this method acts on the strain tensors in a coordinate-invariant fashion allowing isotropic behavior. Our method applies to both two- and three-dimensional strains, and only requires computing the singular value decomposition of the deformation gradient, either a small 2×2 or 3×3 matrix, for each element. We demonstrate its use with triangular and tetrahedral linear-basis elements. For triangulated surfaces in three-dimensional space, we also describe a complementary edge-angle-limiting method to limit out-of-plane bending. All of the limits are enforced through an iterative, non-linear, Gauss-Seidel-like constraint procedure. To accelerate convergence, we propose a novel multi-resolution algorithm that enforces fitted limits at each level of a non-conforming hierarchy. Compared with other constraint-based techniques, our isotropic multi-resolution strain-limiting method is straightforward to implement, efficient to use, and applicable to a wide range of shell and solid materials.

Multi-Resolution Isotropic Strain Limiting

Kesen’s SIGGRAPH Asia page is here.

Physics papers…

• Piles of Objects
• Free-Flowing Granular Materials with Two-Way Solid Coupling
• Multi-Resolution Isotropic Strain Limiting
• Scalable Fluid Simulation using Anisotropic Turbulence Particles
• Multi-Phase Fluid Simulation Using Regional Level Sets
• Stable Inverse Dynamic Curves
• Animation Wrinkling: Augmenting Coarse Cloth Simulations With Realistic-Looking Wrinkles
• Real-Time Collision Culling of a Million Bodies on Graphics Processing Units
• Detail-Preserving Fully Eulerian Interface Tracking Framework

In this paper, we propose a method designed to allow creatures to actively respond to a fluid environment. We explore various objective functions in order to determine ways to direct the behavior of our creatures. Our proposed method works in conjunction with generalized body forces as well as both one-way and two-way coupled fluid forces. As one might imagine, interesting behaviors can be derived from minimizing and maximizing both drag and lift as well as minimizing the effort that a creature’s internal actuators exert. A major application for our work is the automatic specification of secondary motions, for example, certain joints can be animated while others are automatically solved for in order to satisfy the objective function.

Creature Control in a Fluid Environment