This book is written to teach students and practitioners the theory behind the mathematical models and techniques required for physics-based animation. It does not teach the basic principles of animation, but rather demonstrates how to transform theoretical techniques into practical skills. It details how the mathematical models are derived from physical and mathematical principles, and explains how these mathematical models are solved in an efficient, robust, and stable manner with a computer. This impressive and comprehensive volume covers all the issues involved in physics-based animation, including collision detection, geometry, mechanics, differential equations, matrices, quaternions, and more. There is excellent coverage of collision detection algorithms and a detailed overview of a physics system. In addition, numerous examples are provided along with detailed pseudo code for most of the algorithms. This book is ideal for students of animation, researchers in the field, and professionals working in the games and movie industries. Topics Covered: * The Kinematics: Articulated Figures, Forward and Inverse Kinematics, Motion Interpolation * Multibody Animation: Particle Systems, Continuum Models with Finite Differences, the Finite Element Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics * Collision Detection: Broad and Narrow Phase Collision Detection, Contact Determination, Bounding Volume Hierarchies, Feature-and Volume-Based Algorithms

The booming computer games and animated movie industries continue to drive the graphics community’s seemingly insatiable search for increased realism, believability, ad speed. To achieve the quality expected by audiences of today’s games and movies, programmers need to understand and implement physics-based animation. To provide this understanding, this book is written to teach students and practitioners and theory behind the mathematical models and techniques required for physics-based animation. It does not teach the basic principles of animation, but rather how to transform theoretical techniques into practical skills. It details how the mathematical models are derived from physical and mathematical principles, and explains how these mathematical models are solved in an efficient, robust, and stable manner with a computer.

This impressive and comprehensive volume covers all the issues involved in physics-based animation, including collision detection, geometry, mechanics, differential equations, matrices, quaternions, and more. There is excellent coverage of collision detection algorithms and a detailed overview of a physics system. In addition, numerous examples are provided along with detailed pseudo code for most of the algorithms. This book is ideal for students of animation, researchers in the field, and professionals working in the games and movie industries.

Topics Covered: * The Kinematics: Articulated Figures, Forward and Inverse Kinematics, Motion Interpolation * Multibody Animation: Particle Systems, Continuum Models with Finite Differences, the Finite Element Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics * Collision Detection: Broad and Narrow Phase Collision Detection, Contact Determination, Bounding Volume Hierarchies, Feature-and Volume-Based Algorithms

Features: * Great coverage of collision detection algorithms * Good overview of parts of a physics system * Numerous examples with detailed pseudo code for most algorithms * Companion Web site includes additional content, pseudo code from the book, and exercises for appropriate chapters

Since the 1980s, the computer graphics community has strived for increased realism, believability, and speed in computer generated pictures and animation. This field is still booming today, driven by the movie, game, and simulation industry, and the constant increase in computer power. To achieve the quality expected by audiences of games and movies, programmers need to understand and implement physics-based animation methods. Physics-Based Animation is written to teach essential principles and provide practical methods for transforming theoretical techniques into practical skills. It thoroughly details all three of the key subjects: physics, mathematics, and animation. The book gives students and professionals a solid foundation for understanding how the mathematical models are derived from physical and mathematical principles, and how the mathematical models are solved in an efficient, robust, and stable manner on a computer. It is ideal for students of animation, researchers in the field, and professionals working in games and movie industries.

TOPICS COVERED: * The Kinematics: Keyframing, Articulated Features, Kinematics Deformations, and Particles and Effects * The Dynamics: Particle Systems, MultiBody Dynamics, Deformable Objects, Cloth Simulation, and Water Simulation * The Collision Detection: Space Partitioning, Feature Based, Simplex Based, and Volume Based Methods

Loaded with information, spotty derivations, crunchy typesetting

I recommend this book for breadth of coverage and references. However, you will find many of the derivations very lacking and you will have to do a lot of work to prove them to yourself. Also, the mathematical typesetting is very much below par (they should have used LaTeX, which is industry standard!), so your eyes will hurt. I find myself copying out their formulas just so I can read them.

Good book with some problems. I would buy it again.

Highly recommended physics book


I’ve been working in collision detection and rigidbody simulation for several years now and there are not many books that cover stuff needed to get the knowledge to be able to develop a modern physics engine.

Rather then filling half of the book with basic linear algebra and stuff that no-one actually uses when developing realtime physics algorithms, this one actually discusses the good stuff.

Contact points generation, comparison of collision detection algorithms, iterative solvers, sph fluids, fem deformable etc.

Just buy it.
Erwin Coumans
http://www.continuousphysics.com

Highly recommended physics book



I’ve been working in collision detection and rigidbody simulation for several years now and there are not many books that cover stuff needed to get the knowledge to be able to develop a modern physics engine.



Rather then filling half of the book with basic linear algebra and stuff that no-one actually uses when developing realtime physics algorithms, this one actually discusses the good stuff.



Contact points generation, comparison of collision detection algorithms, iterative solvers, sph fluids, fem deformable etc.



Just buy it.

Erwin Coumans

http://www.continuousphysics.com

need some undergrad physics and maths background

The authors figure that you are already an animator. You know the rudiments of programming animation in some language, but want to add more realism to the actions in your games.

The point of this book is to teach you how to go from understanding simple but useful physics equations to implementing these numerically and efficiently in your game. Probably the most obvious context are the equations of motion - where your objects obey gravity. And they conserve momentum and energy, up to a point. That is, you can build in friction into your system, for more realism. Ideally, all of this should make your game more plausible to a player, by conforming to her real world intuition.

The book also gives extensive coverage to collision detection methods. In many games, 2d or 3d, if you have objects moving around, how to quickly see when they might collide? Efficiency is often a key consideration.

Having said all this, it probably does help if you have had several undergraduate courses in physics and maths. So that what the book brings up doesn’t throw you for a loop.