Worksheet 3

Introduction

The aim of this project is to take a look into current methods and techniques for fluid simulation used within games and see what single or combination of techniques is best in terms of visually and performance wise.

Motivation

Fluid flows are everywhere: from rising smoke, clouds and mist to the flow of rivers and oceans. Because one of the major goals games is to immerse players into plausible virtual worlds, it is desirable to include flows into games engines (Stam 2003). Therefore games developers are interested in finding out what are the best techniques to use to accurately simulated fluids within their games. I believe that having accurate simulating water is something which is also expected from consumers within games now a days and knowing what the best techniques are for producing such simulations something that I am interested in knowing and understanding. Obtaining the knowledge of fluid simulation is something that can be quite versatile as well as some of the techniques used for fluid are used for simulating smoke and fire.

Research Question

“Can fluid reactions with objects be accurately simulated in a real-time environment using numerical techniques?”

Addressing the Question

The first thing that will be done will be looking into the techniques that are currently being used and have been investigated for real-time fluid dynamics and see how they look and perform. For each of the techniques that I find they were be a number of test will be carried out to see if visually looks like fluid and if it acts correctly with an object. Also I will look into improve techniques or combining techniques together to prove an ideal fluid simulation.

Resource Requirements

In order for me to answer my research question I will intend to create a program in possibly OpenGL or Direct X which will use a numerical technique to represent fluid. Initially I will start by creating a 2D scene for the fluid and have objects placed so the user can see the fluid reacting when it interacts with the objects. Once I have created this scene I will intend to expand on it to make a 3D scene where users can move the fluid and drop objects into the fluid and seeing the reaction on the screen.

References and Bibliography

Stam, J. 2003. Real-Time Fluid Dynamics for Games. [online] Available from: http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/people/stam/reality/Research/pdf/GDC03.pdf [Accessed 05 November 2008]

Jensen, L.S and Golias, R. 2001. Deep-Wate Animation and Renderingr. [online] Available from: http://www.gamasutra.com/gdce/2001/jensen/jensen_01.htm [Accessed 05 November 2008]
Bart, A., et al. 2007.Adaptively sampled particle fluids. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 papersACM, San Diego, California.

Winter, E And Larsson, M 2006. Go With The Flow -- Water Effects And Fluid Dynamics In Games. Game Developer, November 1, 21-28. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed October 17, 2008).

Lengyel,E. 2004. Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics. 2nd ed. Massachusetts: Charles River Media