Physics 1905.3

Physically Realistic Animation

Pete Border, lecturer

Fall term , 2002

Welcome to physics 1905.3! We will be exploring learning physics through making animations and games. Physics is used extensively in animations and games; without getting the physics right, you can't make a realistic movie. We will try to keep the technical side of the course as easy as possible, but some programming is inevitable. The main language we use will be Python, which is a very high-level scripting language (you can read more at http://www.python.org). We will use python with the vpython extensions (http://www.vpython.org) and as a scripting language in Blender (www.blender3d.com), a free animation software package.

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News

This week we talked about classes and OOP on Tuesday, and finished covering collisions on Thursday. Your homework is to make a vpython game featuring collisions. It is due in class on Oct. 22.

Next week we will discuss the homework on Tuesday, and begin with planar rotations on Thursday.

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Officialness

The course syllabus is here.

An introduction to the course is here.

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Course Calendar

Sep 3: Introductions:

• Lecture Slides

Sep 5: Coordinates and Velocity:

• Lecture Slides

Sep 10: Hand in and discuss homework 1

Sep 12: Acceleration and the basic animation loop

• Lecture Slides
• circular.xls
• falling.xls
• falling2D.xls

Sep 17: Hand in and discuss homework 2

Sep 19: Forces 1

• Lecture Slides
• sled.xls

Sep 24: Hand in and discuss homework 3; intro to vPython

Sep 26: More Forces
Lecture slides

Oct 1: Topics with python- files, keyboard, mouse

• files.py
• hithere.txt
• outfile.txt
• function.py
• keyboard.py
• linecontrol.py
• mouse_pick.py
• variables_and_lists.py
• walker.py

Oct 3: Collisons 1

• Lecture Slides
• collider.py
• collider_friction.py

Oct 8: class cancelled

Oct 10: Hand in and discuss trajectory game

Oct 15: Topics with python-classes and OOP

• Lectures Slides
• inheritance.py

Oct 17: Collision 2 (vocabulary)

• Lecture Slides

Oct 22: Hand in and discuss collision game

Oct 24: Begin Rigid Bodies and Rotation

• Lecture Slides
• rotator1.py
• rotator2.py
• rotator3.py
• rotator4.py
• modeller.py

Oct 31: Rigid Body Rotation part 2

• Lecture Slides

Nov 5: Guest Lecture from Chuck Carter

Nov 7: Rigid Body Collisions and Fun with Blender

• Lecture Slides
• wallbounce.py

Nov 12: Modelling with Blender

• Lecture Slides
• blockBath.blend
• bouncer.blend
• ipoAnimation.blend
• keyframes.blend
• metaballs.blend
• particles.blend
• pathAnimation.blend
• twoBallBouncer.blend

Nov 14: Scripting with Blender

• bounce.blend
• oneBallBouncer.blend
• twoBallBouncer.blend
• string.blend
• 2DRotator.blend
• 2DRotatorCollider.blend
• gameballs.blend
• game_with_colors.blend

Nov 19: Homework and Joints with Blender

• Lecture Slides
• parentAnimation.blend
• IKAnimation.blend
• IKAnimation2.blend

Nov 21: More Joints with Blender

• Lecture Slides from Nov 19
• IKA1.blend
• IKleg.blend
• springJoint.blend
• IKPoseMode.blend

Nov 26: Watched cool demos from Siggraph

Dec 3: Start on 3D rotations

• Lecture Slides from Dec 03
• rotator-works.blend
• top.blend

Dec 5: More on 3D rotations, ODE integration, quaternions

• Lecture Slides from Dec 5
• besttop.blend
• top.blend

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Peter Border
Dec 03, 2002