An Automated Build System for Articulated Characters

Rigging is the process of designing and implementing the manipulation architecture for an animated three-dimensional character. Rigs that give the animator the most control tend to be the most difficult to set up and maintain. Due to the linear nature of some elements of rigging, the more complicated a rig, the more time-intensive--and therefore more expensive--to achieve a high quality rig. A solution to complex rig iterability is to automate as much of the process as possible. The topic of this thesis is a framework for modular rigging automation, with a focus on quick and efficient rig iteration. A rigger is able to design a rig from predefined module elements (rig blocks) or quickly script new blocks. A rig is deconstructed into these elemental blocks and merged into a single rig script to regenerate the rig and attach a character\u27s geometry

Peanut Butter Jelly: An Animated Short Film

Peanut Butter Jelly is an animated short film based on the concept of two species of Jellyfish clashing over a jar of peanut butter. The production spanned a year and involved the artistic effort of 12 Digital Production Arts graduate students as well as a support team of 10 students from various programs within the University

Animating jellyfish through numerical simulation and symmetry exploitation

This thesis presents an automatic animation system for jellyfish that is based on a physical simulation of the organism and its surrounding fluid. Our goal is to explore the unusual style of locomotion, namely jet propulsion, which is utilized by jellyfish. The organism achieves this propulsion by contracting its body, expelling water, and propelling itself forward. The organism then expands again to refill itself with water for a subsequent stroke. We endeavor to model the thrust achieved by the jellyfish, and also the evolution of the organism's geometric configuration. We restrict our discussion of locomotion to fully grown adult jellyfish, and we restrict our study of locomotion to the resonant gait, which is the organism's most active mode of locomotion, and is characterized by a regular contraction rate that is near one of the creature's resonant frequencies. We also consider only species that are axially symmetric, and thus are able to reduce the dimensionality of our model. We can approximate the full 3D geometry of a jellyfish by simulating a 2D slice of the organism. This model reduction yields plausible results at a lower computational cost. From the 2D simulation, we extrapolate to a full 3D model. To prevent our extrapolated model from being artificially smooth, we give the final shape more variation by adding noise to the 3D geometry. This noise is inspired by empirical data of real jellyfish, and also by work with continuous noise functions from the graphics community. Our 2D simulations are done numerically with ideas from the field of computational fluid dynamics. Specifically, we simulate the elastic volume of the jellyfish with a spring-mass system, and we simulate the surrounding fluid using the semi-Lagrangian method. To couple the particle-based elastic representation with the grid-based fluid representation, we use the immersed boundary method. We find this combination of methods to be a very efficient means of simulating the 2D slice with a minimal compromise in physical accuracy

Surfacing Jellyfish for Peanut Butter Jelly

This thesis discusses the surfacing techniques and process used in the creation of two main characters and the supporting crowd characters in the short animation, Peanut Butter Jelly. The goal was to create a custom RenderMan shader that could be used for both characters, and that had qualities of refraction and subsurface scattering, to allow the characters to appear soft and translucent like jellyfish. Shader writing in RenderMan, map painting in Mari, and design decisions are covered to explain the way the goal was achieved. The process for creating an interesting secondary character that cooperated seamlessly with the main jellyfish to form its eyes is also discussed. Ultimately, these visually cohesive and engaging characters lend to the overall success of the final renders

Computer-Assisted Interactive Documentary and Performance Arts in Illimitable Space

This major component of the research described in this thesis is 3D computer graphics, specifically the realistic physics-based softbody simulation and haptic responsive environments. Minor components include advanced human-computer interaction environments, non-linear documentary storytelling, and theatre performance. The journey of this research has been unusual because it requires a researcher with solid knowledge and background in multiple disciplines; who also has to be creative and sensitive in order to combine the possible areas into a new research direction. [...] It focuses on the advanced computer graphics and emerges from experimental cinematic works and theatrical artistic practices. Some development content and installations are completed to prove and evaluate the described concepts and to be convincing. [...] To summarize, the resulting work involves not only artistic creativity, but solving or combining technological hurdles in motion tracking, pattern recognition, force feedback control, etc., with the available documentary footage on film, video, or images, and text via a variety of devices [....] and programming, and installing all the needed interfaces such that it all works in real-time. Thus, the contribution to the knowledge advancement is in solving these interfacing problems and the real-time aspects of the interaction that have uses in film industry, fashion industry, new age interactive theatre, computer games, and web-based technologies and services for entertainment and education. It also includes building up on this experience to integrate Kinect- and haptic-based interaction, artistic scenery rendering, and other forms of control. This research work connects all the research disciplines, seemingly disjoint fields of research, such as computer graphics, documentary film, interactive media, and theatre performance together.Comment: PhD thesis copy; 272 pages, 83 figures, 6 algorithm

Spectacular Tentacular: Transmedial Tentacles and Their Hegemonic Struggles in Cthulhu and Godzilla

Tentacular cephalopods appear regularly in film. Inspired by Hugo and Hokusai, stories of ferocious octopus attacking primates were invented. This fantasy of the Kraken was incorporated into monster movies in the 1950s with the cult of Cthulhu. Lovecraft describes a vision of the resurrection of prehistoric cephalopod monsters and reinterprets fragments from worldwide mythology. With the film King Kong (1933) as their distant origin, Godzilla (1954) and It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) describe returns of monsters as recorded in ancient times. The Japanese film King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) is interesting to consider in this context. Here, in a scenario possibly inspired by Japanese folklore, a huge octopus attacks King Kong, in a struggle that can be interpreted as a battle for initiative in the world of Cthulhu. Cthulhan pseudo-mythology is widely appropriated in later monster movies, although the racism is a stumbling block. In the movie Kong: Skull Island (2017), the monkey god returns like Cthulhu, but bites off the attacking cephalopod's tentacles. This evokes impressive scenes from both King Kong vs. Godzilla and Oldboy (2003). Here, Kong, seeming to extract Cthulhan racism, incorporates the powers of Cthulhu's intense tentacles and pseudo-mythological method

Toward a large-scale environmental performance

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1985.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-178).The theatrical experience can no longer be limited by the confines of a conventional performance space if it is to continue being fresh, lively and spontaneous. Today the developments in electronic imagery systems have broadened the language in the theatrical arena. As a result, performance can even reach beyond earthly communication. In order to understand the role of performance outside preconceived notions of theater, it is important to see it in a larger framework. My proposal attempts a step toward the fusion of performance and environment. I hope to state the potential for "gestural statement" (within a performance framework) on a large scale. One part of the thesis will be a written historical account of large-scale performance which has been integrated in the environment. The second part will be a performance of my own design-- the Woods Hole Inflatable Performance Sculpture (WHIPS).by Jonathan Goldman.M.S.V.S

Vessel manifest

Vessel Manifest explores vessel forms and their pathways through time and experience. In using semiotic definitions to define the term vessel I investigate the ways in which it has become profound in my life. In seeking comfort and in searching for an explanation for the process of life and death, I look to the ways in which a vessel can manifest itself, physically, emotionally, mentally, and metaphysically. Memories of life spent on the water and theories and tenets of Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy are sewn together through images of physical vessels and abstract vessel forms. The large-scale intaglio prints incorporate multi-media methods to enhance their sense of physicality. Form and scale are exaggerated and reversed to amplify organic forms and human systems. Through this enhanced sense of corporality, Vessel Manifest becomes a recording of the collective identity that is our “soul”, as it continues its passage forward

From Single Neurons to Behavior in the Jellyfish Aurelia aurita

Jellyfish nerve nets provide insight into the origins of nervous systems, as both their taxonomic position and their evolutionary age imply that jellyfish resemble some of the earliest neuron-bearing, actively-swimming animals. Here we develop the first neuronal network model for the nerve nets of jellyfish. Specifically, we focus on the moon jelly Aurelia aurita and the control of its energy-efficient swimming motion. The proposed single neuron model disentangles the contributions of different currents to a spike. The network model identifies factors ensuring non-pathological activity and suggests an optimization for the transmission of signals. After modeling the jellyfish's muscle system and its bell in a hydrodynamic environment, we explore the swimming elicited by neural activity. We find that different delays between nerve net activations lead to well-controlled, differently directed movements. Our model bridges the scales from single neurons to behavior, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of jellyfish neural control