Rendering Climate Comedy in *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1* (2009) and *2* (2013)

This paper analyzes the Sony Pictures Animation franchise *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 1* and *2* (2009, 2013) in terms of its affective engagement with climate issues. Throughout the two films, the trope of constantly changing food weather is the subject of analysis and representation both diegetically by the films’ characters and extradiegetically by the films’ technical directors. Rendering the climate in an appealing way becomes paramount on the level of narrative and production. The treatment of food weather in the *Cloudy* films demonstrates the ways in which environmental animation mediates between, in the terms of C. P. Snow, the two cultures of the arts and the sciences. The *Cloudy* films, like many other examples of environmental animation, respond to Snow’s call by deploying imaginative, often comic approaches to topics that in the mainstream media are treated logically and seriously, but with little impact on policy. In the case of the *Cloudy* films, that comic approach to environmentalism is tempered by the films’ cooptation into a corporate responsibility campaign against food insecurity and by the fact that comedy is part and parcel of the business model of industrialized animation. Still, the technical challenges of animating and rendering food weather demanded that animators imaginatively experiment with actual food in a way that went over and above corporate policy. The arresting beauty and sensory engagement of the resulting animated food appeals to characters and viewers alike. Therefore, animated food—mediating nourishment and communication, science and art—may provide a productive inroad to exploring environmental issues

Penumbra : A Spatiotemporal Shade-Irradiance Analysis Tool with External Model Integration for Landscape Assessment, Habitat Enhancement, and Water Quality Improvement

Several solar energy models exist, but all models must balance: computational runtime, light complexity, and model output volume. These models span the spectrum of simplistic global solar energy equation sets to complex light ray-tracing models. Spatiotemporally inaccurate representations of solar energy may cause compounding simulation effects and introduce unknown modeling uncertainty. Within the current solar energy modeling spectrum was the need to advance large watershed area spatiotemporal irradiance modeling. A model utilizing methods simpler than ray-tracing that still accounted for the major environmental light reduction factors was needed. The model developed we called Penumbra. Penumbra provides solar energy reduction from topographic shadowing, forest shadowing, and cloud coverage at landscape scales. Penumbra was developed to function as a stand-alone model, but also be capable of integration within existing ecosystem models. Penumbra’s intended audience include ecosystem modelers, land owners, watershed councils, county, state, and federal entities; any group needing an enhanced understanding of how light energy impacts processes within their landscapes. The questions being asked by my intended audience regard riparian zone restoration, fish habitat restoration, and improved forest management. To address these questions, a well-functioning shade|irradiance model capable of assisting with multiyear landscape assessments was needed

vorgelegt von

Prof. Dr. N. NavabTo my familyAcknowledgements I am deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to write this thesis while working at the Chair for Pattern Recognition within the project B6 of the Sonderforschungsbereich 603 (funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). Many people contributed to this work and I want to express my gratitude to all of them

Point sample rendering

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-56).We present an algorithm suitable for real-time, high quality rendering of complex objects. Objects are represented as a dense set of surface point samples which contain colour, depth and normal information. These point samples are obtained by sampling orthographic views on an equilateral triangle lattice. They are rendered directly and independently without any knowledge of surface topology. We introduce a novel solution to the problem of surface reconstruction using a hierarchy of Z-buffers to detect tears. The algorithm is fast, easily vectorizable, and requires only modest resources.by J.P. Grossman.S.M

Ray Tracing Displacement Mapped Surface

Displacement mapping is a technique in computer graphics which allows a simple base surface to be deformed into a more complex surface by applying a texture to change the geometry. This is achieved by applying to each point on the surface a displacement, specified by a displacement function, with a magnitude specified by a height field. This technique makes it possible to transform the simple primitives used in computer graphics today into visually rich and geometrically complex surfaces. Displacement mapping is a texture mapping technique in which the texture is the height field defining the displacement magnitudes. But, unlike any other form of texture mapping, displacement mapping alters the surface geometry. This has many implications for the rendering of displacement mapped surfaces. It must be considered early in the rendering process during the visibility calculations (since it defines the actual geometry of the surface). This is in contrast to other forms of texture mapping which are applied after the visibility of the surface is known. This fact accounts for much of the power and complexity involved in rendering displacement mapped surfaces This thesis provides an investigation into ways to render such surfaces by the use of ray tracing. It is commonly believed that displacement mapped surfaces are too complex to be ray-traced due to the complex nature of the geometry they define. This myth is disproved by the algorithms contained herein. Three algorithms are presented which tackle the ray-surface intersection problem for displacement mapped surfaces (this being the core calculation in a ray tracer). The first algorithm tackles the problem geometrically by analysing the geometry of the intersection calculation. This approach provides a fast algorithm but with limited applicability. It is only suitable for simple base surfaces where the underlying geometry can be easily analysed. The second algorithm reduced the intersection calculation to a system of non-linear equations and applies existing numerical techniques to solve these. This approach, although very general, proves to unsuccessful due to the enormous amount of computation involved. The third approach polygonalises the displacement-mapped surface as it is rendered and calculates the intersections with the generated polygons. This, combined with a system to allow the efficient generation, storage and processing of the generated polygons, provides the first practical system for ray tracing displacement mapped surfaces

Backstories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook

Sharing recipes is a form of intimate conversation that nourishes body and soul, family and community. Backstories: The Kitchen Table Talk Cookbook integrates formal scholarship with informal reflections, analyses of recipe books with heirloom recipes, and text with images to emphasize the ways that economics, politics, and personal meaning come together to shape our changing relationships with food. By embracing elements of history, rural studies, and women’s studies, this volume offers a unique perspective by relating food history with social dynamics. It is sure to inspire eclectic dining and conversations. Cynthia C. Prescott is Professor of History at the University of North Dakota and an occasional baker. Her research focuses on portrayals of rural women in cultural memory. Maureen Sherrard Thompson is a Ph.D. candidate at Florida International University. Her dissertation focuses on business, environmental, and gender perspectives associated with the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century seed industry. With contributions by: Linda Ambrose, Samantha K. Ammons, Jenny Barker Devine, Nikki Berg Burin, Lynne Byall Benson, Eli Bosler, Carla Burgos, Joseph Cates, Diana Chen, Myrtle Dougall, Egge, Margaret Thomas Evans, Dee Garceau, Tracey Hanshew, Kathryn Harvey, Mazie Hough, Sarah Kesterson, Marie Kenny, Hannah Peters Jarvis, Katherine Jellison, M. Jensen, Cherisse Jones-Branch, Katie Mayer, Amy L. McKinney, Diane McKenzie, Krista Lynn Minnotte, Elizabeth H. Morris, Sara E. Morris, Mary Murphy, Stephanie Noell, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Virginia Scharff, Rebecca Sharpless, Rachel Snell, Joan Speyer, Pamela Snow Sweetser, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Erna van Duren, Audrey Williams, Catharine Anne Wilson, Jean Wilson.https://commons.und.edu/press-books/1017/thumbnail.jp

ENGLISH WORD-MAKING

English Word-Making presents the content and methods of modern research in morphology in the form of a textbook for secondary school English students. The opening section offers a rationale for the uses of morphology at the secondary level. The emergence of English as a subject in the curriculum is traced historically; and the study of morphology is related specifically to humanistic goals and to the enhancing of skills in language analysis, speaking, reading, vocabulary growth, grammar and usage study, spelling, composition, and literary interpretation. The main body of the text consists of ten chapters, each exploring, diachronically and synchronically, a primary category of English word-formation: compounding, reduplication, derivation, conversion, clipping, back formation, acronyming, blending, and eponyming. Each chapter includes exercises that require students to apply what they have learned about the English language. At the end of each chapter are extensive Notes that reinforce and expand the concepts presented in the main text. Appendix 1 is an exposition of English spelling through a cataloguing of various phoneme-grapheme correspondences. Appendix 2 is an attempt to apply to the slang lexicon of St. Paul\u27s School (vintage 1978) the principals of morphological analysis that are treated throughout the manuscript