COMP 764B - Computer Graphics and Animation

COMP 764B - Computer Graphics and Animation
Winter 2008 (Advanced Topics Systems 1)

Last updated: 19 February 2008

Overview - Prerequisites - Objectives - Format - Evaluation - Project - Materials

General Information

Course Web Page	www.cs.mcgill.ca/~kry/comp764b.html
Lectures	Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:30 in ENGMC 320

Instructor	Paul Kry
Telephone	514 398 2577
Office	MC113N
Office Hours	By appointment (any time!)

NOTE: This is an initial course outline and it will change during the term. Please refer to the latest version at the link above.

Additional course materials (internal access only)

Schedule

Mon 7 Jan	Introduction, course description, overview of topics.
Wed 9 Jan	Motion capture, technology, motion reuse and modification. Reading: Interaction Capture and Synthesis, P. G. Kry, D. K. Pai, SIGGRAPH 2006
Mon 14 Jan	Review, ordinary differential equations and numerical integration Reading: Physically Based Modeling ODE Basics, glance through particle systems or skip directly to implicit methods More Information: David Baraff and Andrew Witkin, Large steps in cloth simulation, SIGGRAPH 1998 Computer Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations and Differential-Algebraic Equations, Uri M. Ascher and Linda R. Petzold, Chapter 3
Wed 16 Jan	Review, constraints, constraint stabilization (Baumgarte, post stabilization), mathematical introduction to rigid body motion, (no time for solving linear systems, sparse systems) Reading: Physically Based Modeling Constrained Dynamics, start looking at rigid body simulation More Information: A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation, R. Murray, Z. Li, and S. Sastry, Chapter 2
Mon 21 Jan	More rigid body motion, screws, brief look at solving linear systems. (no time was left for unilateral constraints, reduced physical models, e.g., Good Vibrations, DyRT). Suggested Reading: M. B. Cline and D. K. Pai, Post-Stabilization for Rigid Body Simulation with Contact and Constraints, in proceedings of the IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Autom., 2003. [Describes both Baumgarte stabilization, and post-step stabilization] A. Pentland , J. Williams, Good vibrations: model dynamics for graphics and animation, ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, v.23 n.3, p.207-214, July 1989 More Information: Physically-based modeling: past, present, and future, siggraph panel 1989 M.-J. Kim, M.-S. Kim, and S. Y. Shin, A General Construction Scheme for Unit Quaternion Curves with Simple High Order Derivatives, SIGGRAPH 1995 Doug L. James and Dinesh K. Pai, DyRT: Dynamic Response Textures for Real Time Deformation Simulation with Graphics Hardware, ACM Transactions on Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH 2002), 21(3), pp. 582-585, 2002.
Wed 23 Jan	Final summary of rigid body motion, dynamics. More Information: A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation, R. Murray, Z. Li, and S. Sastry, Chapter 4 Note: (moved) Send paper suggestions and preference of order and dates to me in email by Jan 23
Mon 28 Jan	Revisit missed topics from Monday 21, plus time permitting: collision detection and response, broad phase, narrow phase, OBB, AABB, spheres, collision response, we may also touch on optimization, data fitting, and approximation. Suggested Reading: Doug L. James and Dinesh K. Pai, BD-Tree: Output-Sensitive Collision Detection for Reduced Deformable Models, ACM Transactions on Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH 2004), 23(3), pp. 393-398, August 2004. Teschner et al., Collision Detection for Deformable Objects, Eurographics STAR 2004 [survey] More Information: Boyd and Vandenberghe, Convex Optimization, [i.e., for Lagrangian and KKT conditions] Evangelos Kokkevis, Practical Physics for Articulated Characters, GDC 2004 Game Physics (book), David Eberly
Wed 30 Jan	Motion capture reuse and control. BD-Tree discussion. Reading: Multiobjective Control with Frictional Contacts, Yeuhi Abe, Marco da Silva, Jovan Popović, Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA), 2007 Dynamic Response for Motion Capture Animation, Zordan, V. B., Majkowska, A., Chiu, B., Fast, M SIGGRAPH 2005
Mon 4 Feb	Clarke, Inverse Rendering Reading: A Signal-Processing Framework for Inverse Rendering, Ravi Ramamoorthi, Pat Hanrahan, SIGGRAPH 2001
Wed 6 Feb	Discussion of Dynamic Response for Motion Capture Animation (read for Jan 30), and Reading: Metoyer et al., Psychologically inspired anticipation and dynamic response for impacts to the head and upper body, IEEE TCVG 2008
Mon 11 Feb	Reading: Near-optimal Character Animation with Continuous Control, Treuille, A. Lee, Y. Popović, Z. SIGGRAPH 2007 Learning Physics-based Motion Style with Inverse Optimization, K. Liu, A. Hertzmann, Z. Popović, SIGGRAPH 2005 Note: Tentative due date for final project proposal (survey paper as part of proposal if only one presentation)
Wed 13 Feb	Marta, Facial Animation Perception
Mon 18 Feb	More facial animation, physically based and data driven methods. Reference: Facial modeling and animation, SIGGRAPH 2004 course notes
Wed 20 Feb	Finish with facial animation: performance capture and resynthesis. Hands: modeling and animating techniques, grasping, control, planning, quality.
Mon 25 Feb	No class (Study break)
Wed 27 Feb	No class (Study break)
Mon 3 Mar	Real-time lighting and precomputed light transfer. Reference: Real-Time Ambient Occlusion for Dynamic Character Skins, A. G. Kirk, O. Arikan, I3D 2007
Wed 5 Mar	Sammy, Instant Ray Tracing: The Bounding Interval Hierarchy
Mon 10 Mar	Tom, Capturing and animating skin deformation in human motion
Wed 12 Mar	Fahim, Wave Particles
Mon 17 Mar	Skinning: PSD, EigenSkin, MWE, Character Skins from Examples. Reading: EigenSkin: real time large deformation character skinning in hardware, Kry, James, Pai, SCA'02
Wed 19 Mar	cancelled
Mon 24 Mar	No class (Easter Monday)
Wed 26 Mar	More Skinning: dual quaternions, skinning mesh animations. Reading: Skinning with Dual Quaternions, L. Kavan, S. Collins, J. Zara, C. O'Sullivan, I3D 2007
Mon 31 Mar	Fahim, SPH fluid simulation Reading: Particle-Based Fluid Simulation for Interactive Applications, Matthias Müller, David Charypar and Markus Gross, SCA 2003
Wed 2 Apr	Advanced motion capture analysis Reading: Exact Principal Geodesic Analysis for Data on SO(3), Said, Courty, LeBihan, Sangwine, USIPCO 2007
Mon 7 Apr	Reading: Animal Gaits From Video, Favreau, Reveret, Depraz, Cani, SCA 04
Wed 9 Apr	Marta, motion exaggeration Reading: Martial arts in artificial reality, Hamalainen et al., SIGCHI 05
Tue 15 Apr	Final project demos, meet at 5pm in MC110A

Overview

Recent advances in computer graphics and animation are permitting new levels of realism and interactivity with benefits to a variety of applications such as video games, movies, and training simulations. The goal of this course is to expose students to a sample of these new and advanced techniques and to help each student develop an understanding of the state of the art in computer animation research. The format of the course will be seminar style with in class student presentations and discussions of important and recent publications. Example topics may include motion capture processing, animating humans and animals, character skinning, acoustics, rigid body dynamics, deformable objects, collision detection and response, physically based methods, and more. The course will also involve a final project.

Prerequisites

This course is intended for graduate students in Computer Science or Electrical and Computer Engineering. It is also open to other students with permission of the instructor. Students taking this course will ideally have taken an introductory computer graphics course, and and have good knowledge of linear algebra, calculus, for working through papers. Strong programming skills will also be helpful in completing the course project.

Objectives

The objective of this course is to have students develop an understanding of the state of the art in computer graphics and animation. This will be achieved by reading, analyzing, and discussing the new ideas and advanced techniques presented in recent publications. At the end of the term, students will have a good idea of the current important challenges in computer animation research. Students may also be able to reuse general methods and techniques covered during the term in their own research. Finally, a general objective is for students to gain experience in reading and presenting research articles, which should be of benefit when they carry out their thesis research.

Course Format and Evaluation

The class will be taught in a seminar-style format. The first weeks be lectures presented by the instructor to review background material, but most classes will consist of student presentations and a group discussion. You should find your own papers to read and present, but a summary of papers in different areas will be provided in class to help those who are looking for a place to start. You will be expected to present one time during the term, and you will need to provide a list of a few papers that interest you for the second week of class. The selected papers will be grouped into different themes, and if there are overlaps you may be asked to choose an alternative paper.

Presentations will be approximately 15 to 20 minutes in length. You are also expected to read the papers for each class, and must be ready to discuss ideas in the paper. Discussion will clarify questions such as the real contributions and impact of the paper, the relationship does it has to other papers and current practices, the limitations of the method and how it could be improved, etc.

In addition to the one presentation that is expected, you write a short survey on a area of interest to you. Alternatively, you can present a second time as an alternative.

There are three components to the grading scheme.

40% paper presentation / paper survey or 2nd presentation
20% class participation
40% final project

Academic Integrity

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore, all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures. See www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information, as well as www.mcgill.ca/integrity/studentguide, the Student Guide to Avoid Plagiarism.

Final project

Each student will complete a final project of their choosing, either alone or in a group. A project should be an implementation of the key parts of one one of the papers discussed in class. If possible, students should also try to incorporate something new or novel in their projects. This could be a small extension of a method, an analysis, an evaluation, or some additional feature. A brief one page proposal proposal will be submitted for approval. A final report along with source code, videos, images and any other relevant material will be due at the end of the term. The report should be brief but thorough and should highlight what you learned, what was easier than expected, what was harder, and what you wish you knew before starting. More details will be provided in class and on this web page later in the term.

Course Materials

All the articles and papers needed for readings and presentations in this course should be available online. Use Tim Rowley's site, Google scholar, Citeseer, the ACM digital library, or look for the paper directly on the web page of one of the authors. If you are using an Internet connection at home, you may need to use a McGill library VPN connection to access some resources.

Note that videos of some SIGGRAPH presentations in recent years can be found online in the ACM Digital Library. Many are good examples to emulate, though class presentations may want to focus on different aspects. Some advice for giving good presentations will be provided in class, while lots of additional advice for giving a good presentation can be found on the web.