Project 2

Computer Animation, Spring 2002

Project 2: Keyframe Animation

This project is adapted from Assignment 5 in COS426 by Tom Funkhouser.
The original ideas, code, and data came from Tony DeRose

Overview

In this assignment you will animate motions for an articulated figure. You will be given an articulated 3D model and sets of keyframes specifying the orientations of articulated joints at specific time steps. Your job is to interpolate the keyframes smoothly over a time interval and display the articulated figure in an OpenGL window so that it performs animated actions (e.g., walks, dances, etc.) in real-time. You also will provide an editor so a user can modify keyframes and create new ones.
The assignment will specified in two parts.

Project Part A:

Due Friday, March 6 at 11:59 PM.

What You Have to Do

Part A of the assignment is to build a keyframe editor. Part A is worth 10 points. The following is a list of features that you may implement. The number in parentheses corresponds to how many points it is worth. Options in bold are mandatory.

Keyframe Editor:

The keyframe editor is a program that allows a user to edit keyframe parameter values interactively while displaying a smooth curve interpolating the keyframe values. You should read in a .ray that specifies an animated scene. You should allow the user to select any of the keyframe parameters from a pull-down menu and draw a curve through the keyframe values for that parameter. Ray files may be nested and you need to allow the user to step through the ray file hierarchy to select the appropriate parameter set. The user should be allowed to drag the keyframe values up and down while updating the curve in real-time. You should allow the user to save the new keyframe values to a new .key file. An overview of the .ray file sytax can be found here. An overview of the .key file syntax can be found here. A parser can be found here.

(3) Write a keyframe editor that allows a user to select a parameterized joint from a .key file using a pull-down and displays a piecewise linear curve through the keyframe values for that joint in an OpenGL window.
(1) Augment your program to step through the ray file hierarchy to locate a nested key file.
(1) Augment your keyframe editor with the ability to drag keyframe values up and down for the selected joint interactively while the curve is updated in real-time. Provide a key stroke or menu item to save the edited keyframe values to a new .key file.
(1) Modify your keyframe editor to draw the curve for each keyframe parameter using a piecewise cubic Catmull-Rom spline.
(1) Implement the ability to resample your piecewise cubic Catmull-Rom curves at a specified number of regular intervals and generate a new .key file with the corresponding resampled value information.
(2) Build a new set of keyframes to animate the stick man juggling 3 balls.
(2) Build a new animated model (.ray file).
(1) Create a movie of your juggling act.
(?) Impress us with something we hadn't considered...

Getting Started

You should use the code available at /cs/cs181a/proj2/src on the graphics cluster as a starting point for your assignment.
It is very similar to the code used in assignment in the last assignment (and that used in CS155 for the ray tracing assignment). An overview of the code can be found here. Some aspects of the code will not be used until the Part B of the assignment.

What to Submit

You should submit one archive (zip or tar file) containing:

the complete source code
a makefile
any .ray and .key files you created
images of your models
any movie you create
a writeup

The writeup should be a HTML document called project2a.html which may include other documents or pictures. It should be brief, describing what you have implemented, and how you created your models.