Skip Navigation eScience Home | ANU Home | Search FEIT | Search ANU

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT)

Dept. of Computer Science (DCS)

eScience Master Project

---

Title : Walking with dinosaurs

• Status : proposition

• Student:

• Client : Hugh Fisher <hugh.fisher[at]anu.edu.au>

• Period : <semester 1, 2006>

• Workload: (not specified)

• Keywords: VR, flocking, interaction, animation

---

Description

I have a very simple flocking and procedural animation demonstration, of ostrich dinosaurs (Jurassic Park style) running around a square and changing direction to avoid the edges and each other. It works in the Wedge but only as a purely passive experience; the animation isn't smooth, and the rendering is just wireframe.

The project has two components. One is to improve the visual quality with properly shaded and textured dinos, smoother animation, and more interesting terrain for the dinos to move around in. The other is to make it more interactive. If you are in the Wedge, can the flocking code be changed to react to your presence? Can the way you act change the behaviour of the dinos, with some motions perceived as friendly, others as being hostile?

More Information

This project requires programming in Python and the Py3D system used in Computer Graphics tutorials, and all development will be on Unix/Linux systems. 1