Kane Carroll
CPE 474 Fall 2012
Zoe Wood

Project Description:

My final project deals with particle systems and physically based animations. It is the story of a lonely bowling pin that is sick and tired of his everyday job which entails endless beatings from oncoming bowling balls. One day the bowling pin decides he is going to stand up to the bowling ball and not take the abuse anymore. In an epic confrontation, the bowling pin and bowling ball collide causing the bowling ball to explode and shatter into many different pieces. The end.

Main Features:

• Particle Systems
• Physically Based Animation
• Catmull-Rom Spline
• Object Mesh Loader
• Hierarchical Modeling
• Phong shading
• Camera Transformations
• Texture mapping
• Title Screen

Keys:

Specifics:

• Particle Systems
  • Particle Systems were incorporated to create the explosion effect. There are four different parts to the explosion (Ball particles, smoke, fumes, shockwave). Each set of particles have different characteristics that define how each individual particle will act during the course of its life. The main characteristics are position, velocity, acceleration, transparency, and scale.


• Catmull-Rom Spline
  • During the course of the animation the bowling ball follows a Catmull-Rom spline as it rolls down the bowling lane.


• Mesh Loader
  • A simple mesh loader was used to incorporate .obj files. The mesh loader loads in a basic bowling pin .obj mesh and creates a VBO to store the mesh information.


• Texture Mapping
  • I incorporated texture mapping into my final project. I texture mapped a wood floor image to the ground plane of my level to simulate a bowling alley lane.


• Hierarchical Modeling
  • Hierarchical Modeling was incorporated into the characters of the animation. The bowling pin character consists of a mesh object shaped like a bowling pin, as well as two heirarchically modeled red rings to enhance the appearance of the bowling pin. The front bowling pin has added facial features that the other nine bowling pins do not. Along with the previously stated objects, the front pin contains three more heirarchically modeled objects to create the face of the pin. The pin character has three different facial features (Happy, Sad, Shocked). The bowling ball character consists of a sphere object as well as three heirarchically modeled objects to create the face of the ball.


• Camera Transformations
  • Camera Transformations were used throughout the entire animation process. There are six different camera positions.


• Title Screen
  • I created a Title Screen using gimp and exported it as a .bmp image file. I then load and render the image file displaying the Title Screen. When the user wishes to begin the animation, the keyboard character 't' removes the Title Screen from display and starts the animation.

Video:

Explosion

Screenshots: