Animating Sand, Mud, and Snow

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation model for deformable ground surfaces in animations, enabling realistic footprints and tracks in sand, mud, and snow, controlled by five parameters, enhancing environmental realism in animated scenes.

Contribution

Introduces a novel simulation algorithm for deformable ground surfaces that creates realistic footprints and tracks with minimal parameters.

Findings

Footprints in different surfaces vary realistically

Simulation controlled by only five parameters

Comparison shows high realism of footprints

Abstract

Computer animations often lack the subtle environmental changes that should occur due to the actions of the characters. Squealing car tires usually leave no skid marks, airplanes rarely leave jet trails in the sky, and most runners leave no footprints. In this paper, we describe a simulation model of ground surfaces that can be deformed by the impact of rigid body models of animated characters. To demonstrate the algorithms, we show footprints made by a runner in sand, mud, and snow as well as bicycle tire tracks, a bicycle crash, and a falling runner. The shapes of the footprints in the three surfaces are quite different, but the effects were controlled through only five essentially independent parameters. To assess the realism of the resulting motion, we compare the simulated footprints to human footprints in sand.