3,106 research outputs found
Creating gameplay mechanics with deformable characters
This paper presents how soft body simulation can create deformable characters and physics-based game mechanics that result in a more varied gameplay experience. A framework was implemented that allows the creation of a fully deformable soft body character within a games application where the simulation model properties could be altered at runtime to create gameplay mechanics based on varying the deformation of the character. The simulation model was augmented to allow appropriate methods of player control that complemented the character design and its ability to deform. It was found that while the implementation of deformation-based mechanics created a more varied gameplay experience, the underlying simulation model allowed for a limited amount of deformation before becoming unstable. The ffectiveness of the framework is demonstrated by the resulting mechanics that are not possible through the use of previous methods
Scalable partitioning for parallel position based dynamics
We introduce a practical partitioning technique designed for parallelizing Position Based Dynamics, and exploiting
the ubiquitous multi-core processors present in current commodity GPUs. The input is a set of particles whose
dynamics is influenced by spatial constraints. In the initialization phase, we build a graph in which each node
corresponds to a constraint and two constraints are connected by an edge if they influence at least one common
particle. We introduce a novel greedy algorithm for inserting additional constraints (phantoms) in the graph
such that the resulting topology is q-colourable, where ˆ qˆ ≥ 2 is an arbitrary number. We color the graph, and
the constraints with the same color are assigned to the same partition. Then, the set of constraints belonging to
each partition is solved in parallel during the animation phase. We demonstrate this by using our partitioning
technique; the performance hit caused by the GPU kernel calls is significantly decreased, leaving unaffected the
visual quality, robustness and speed of serial position based dynamics
Animation of deformable bodies with quadratic bézier finite elements
pre-printIn this article, we investigate the use of quadratic finite elements for graphical animation of deformable bodies.We consider both integrating quadratic elements with conventional linear elements to achieve a computationally efficient adaptive-degree simulation framework as well as wholly quadratic elements for the simulation of nonlinear rest shapes. In both cases, we adopt the B´ezier basis functions and employ a co-rotational linear strain formulation. As with linear elements, the co-rotational formulation allows us to precompute per-element stiffness matrices, resulting in substantial computational savings. We present several examples that demonstrate the advantages of quadratic elements in general and our adaptive-degree system in particular. Furthermore, we demonstrate, for the first time in computer graphics, animations of volumetric deformable bodies with nonlinear rest shapes
ChainQueen: A Real-Time Differentiable Physical Simulator for Soft Robotics
Physical simulators have been widely used in robot planning and control.
Among them, differentiable simulators are particularly favored, as they can be
incorporated into gradient-based optimization algorithms that are efficient in
solving inverse problems such as optimal control and motion planning.
Simulating deformable objects is, however, more challenging compared to rigid
body dynamics. The underlying physical laws of deformable objects are more
complex, and the resulting systems have orders of magnitude more degrees of
freedom and therefore they are significantly more computationally expensive to
simulate. Computing gradients with respect to physical design or controller
parameters is typically even more computationally challenging. In this paper,
we propose a real-time, differentiable hybrid Lagrangian-Eulerian physical
simulator for deformable objects, ChainQueen, based on the Moving Least Squares
Material Point Method (MLS-MPM). MLS-MPM can simulate deformable objects
including contact and can be seamlessly incorporated into inference, control
and co-design systems. We demonstrate that our simulator achieves high
precision in both forward simulation and backward gradient computation. We have
successfully employed it in a diverse set of control tasks for soft robots,
including problems with nearly 3,000 decision variables.Comment: In submission to ICRA 2019. Supplemental Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IWD4iGIsB4 Project Page:
https://github.com/yuanming-hu/ChainQuee
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