1st Edition

The Art of Fluid Animation

By Jos Stam Copyright 2016
    279 Pages 149 Color Illustrations
    by A K Peters/CRC Press

    280 Pages
    by A K Peters/CRC Press

    Fluid simulation is a computer graphic used to develop realistic animation of liquids in modern games. The Art of Fluid Animation describes visually rich techniques for creating fluid-like animations that do not require advanced physics or mathematical skills. It explains how to create fluid animations like water, smoke, fire, and explosions through computer code in a fun manner.

    The book presents concepts that drive fluid animation and gives a historical background of the computation of fluids. It covers many research areas that include stable fluid simulation, flows on surfaces, and control of flows. It also gives one-paragraph summaries of the material after each section for reinforcement.

    This book includes computer code that readers can download and run on several platforms so they can extend their work beyond what is described in the book. The material provided here is designed to serve as a starting point for aspiring programmers to begin creating their own programs using fluid animation.

    Introduction

    Observations, Equations, and Numbers
    Beavers, Cave Persons, and Fire
    From Caves to Greeks: Archimedes, Gold, and Medals
    Long Curly Haired Mathematicians, the Abyss and the Airbrush

    Euler–Newton Equations or Navier–Stokes Equations
    Leonardo
    Euler and Continuity
    Incompressibility, Continuity, Helmholtz, and Hodge
    Euler and the Motion of Fluids
    Newton and Viscosity
    Navier and Stokes and Their Equations
    Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries, and Boundaries

    The Early Days of Computational Fluid Dynamics

    Kolmogorov and Turbulence

    Introduction to Fluid Animation
    Discretize! Bugs, Grids, and Bugs Moving through Grids

    Intermezzi
    Intermezzo Uno: Linear Systems
    Intermezzo Due: The General Solution of a Linear System
    Intermezzo Tre: Circulant Matrices and the Fourier Transform
    Intermezzo Quattro: Numerical Solution of Linear Systems

    A Simple Fluid Solver
    A Math Horror Flick: Operator Splitting
    Code Please?
    Bugs Crawling on Donuts, the FFT, and ~60 Lines of C Code
    Four-Dimensional Turbulent Vector Fields and Turbulence
    Decorating Fluids

    The Little Computers Who Can Handle Fluids

    The Smart Phones Who Can Handle Fluids

    Fluid FX: Version 2.0 of Autodesk Fluid

    Show Time! MAYA Fluid Effects

    Fluids on Arbitrary Surfaces

    Control Freaks! How to Make Fluids Do What We Want
    Shooting Cannon Balls in Two Dimensions
    Computer Optimizers
    The Ad, the Joint, and the Path Back to the Optimizer

    Real Experiments, Computer Experiments, and Validation
    Spheres Are Such a Drag
    Curly Flows behind Spheres, Wavy Flows in Tubes, and Turbulent Plumes between Plates

    Epilogue: Let’s Call It Quits

    Biography

    Jos Stam is a senior research scientist with Autodesk. He was born in the Netherlands and educated in Geneva, Switzerland, where he received dual bachelor degrees in computer science and pure mathematics. In 1989 he moved to Toronto, where he completed his master's and PhD in computer science. His research spans several areas of computer graphics: natural phenomena, physics-based simulation, rendering, and surface modeling, especially subdivision surfaces. He has published papers in all of these areas in journals and at conferences. In 2005 he received the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, one of the most prestigious awards in computer graphics. He also won two Technical Achievement Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and has been featured in Wired magazine.