Generation of dynamic natural scenes is essential for real-time applications,
such as simulators or video-games. Here is a method for animating and rendering
a prairie in real time. The geometric model for the grass relies on three
different levels of detail: 3D geometry, volumetric textures (called here 2.5D
representation), and 2D textures.
The animation of these LODs is controlled through procedural animation
primitives that implement wind effects such as slight breeze, gust of wind,
whirlwind, or blast of air due to a flying object. Smooth transitions between
levels of detail are computed on the fly according to camera motion, without
stopping the animation.
Offering real-time control of such a natural scene is difficult because of the number of blades of grass to animate and display. Several parameters, such as the number of line segments primitives per blade of 3D grass or the number of polygons in the 2.5D repre-sentation, can be modified. We think that tuning those parameters on the fly according to the discrete distance between a patch of grass and the camera could greatly increase the frame rate.
For further details: http://www-evasion.imag.fr/Membres/Frank.Perbet/prairie/presentation.html
Contacts: Frank.Perbet@imag.fr - Marie_Paule.Cani@imag.fr
