CSCI 6555 - Computer Animation: Fall 2005

General Information

Text
"Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques" by Rick Parent

References
Watt and Watt, Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques
Kerlow, The Art of 3-D Computer Animation and Imaging

Instructor
Jean Honorio
Office: 109-A Staughton Hall
Office phone: 202-994-5373
E-mail: [email protected]
URL: http://home.gwu.edu/~jhonorio/

Office Hours
Friday 4-6pm, other times by appointment.

Assignments
There will be approximately five assignments

Exams
A mid-term and a final

Grades
Based on the following weighting:
Assignments40%
Midterm exam25%
Final exam35%

Grading is on a curve, modified to account for overall class quality.

Missed exam
By prior arrangement only, or due to an immediate personal emergency.

Cooperation
I encourage you to discuss approaches to problem solutions with each other. It is unreasonable to collaboratively work out a detailed solution, to copy a solution, or to give away a solution for the assignments. However, I encourage you to work with each other for the final project. All examinations, papers, and other graded work products and assignments are to be completed in conformance with The George Washington University Code of Academic Integrity.

Schedule

08/31 Introduction:
Course structure
Traditional animation
Overview of the different techniques

09/07 Coordinate systems:
Key-framing
Euler angles and quaternions
Quaternion interpolation
(Lab 0, due 09/14)

09/14 Interpolation:
Catmull-Rom and B-Splines
Arc length parameterization
(Lab 1, due 09/28)

09/21 Deformable objects I:
Free-form deformation
Radial basis functions deformation
2D and 3D morphing

09/28 Hierarchical objects:
Forward kinematics
Inverse kinematics
(Lab 2, due 10/19)

10/05 Character animation:
Walking, running, aperiodic motion
Facial animation
Soft tissue

10/12 Physics-based motion control:
Forward rigid-body dynamics
Collision detection and response
Optimization techniques

10/19 Midterm review
(Lab 3, due 11/09)

10/26 MIDTERM EXAM

11/02 Deformable objects II:
Spring-mass model
Particle systems
Implicit surfaces

11/09 Behavioral animation:
Boid model
Autonomous agents
Derivation of controllers
(Lab 4, due 11/23)

11/16 Motion capture:
Hardware and interface
Blending, warping, retargeting
Motion graphs

11/23 Natural phenomena:
Plants, L-systems, evolutionary models
Water, smoke, fire clouds
(Final project, due 12/10)

11/30 Rendering and temporal anti-aliasing
Sound modeling and synchronization

12/07 Final review

12/12 The 14th Annual Festival of Animation!

12/14 FINAL EXAM