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Creating fluid game assets by synchronizing video textures to geometry sequences
Thesis   Open access

Creating fluid game assets by synchronizing video textures to geometry sequences

Benjamin Monaco
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Jun 2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/D8JD5D
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Abstract

Digital media Computer games--Design Video games Surfaces--Computer simulation Computer Animation Computer Science
When a game artist creates an asset for a game they will inevitably encounter corners to be cut. That is how game art is optimized and delivered on time. Pipelines that cut the fewest corners without slowing down development will become mainstays in the game artists' tool kit. Fluid props and environment pieces are amongst the most difficult to create. Imagine your art director asks your team to create a monster that spits lava. For the FX artist, the first part of the problem is clear; make a fluid simulation and export out an optimized mesh sequence. The second part of the problem is difficult; how do we animate the surface? Traditionally, because UV mapping a mesh sequence is difficult, the answer would be to create a shader. With this solution, the artist's pipeline has gone off course. Further, the surface animation cannot be fully derived from the artist's original simulation-it's a fix. This research presents a pipeline that a game artist can use to create a fluid simulation exactly how they want, and to then assemble it as an optimized game asset for a game engine, fully deriving all assets-geometry and texture-from the original simulation. The only texture animation method available that can be fully derived from the original simulation is an image sequence, because each image is literally rendered from each frame of the simulation. As animation duration increases, image sequences quickly become too large for game development project standards. This research sees the novel application of video to animate a geometry sequence texture as a replacement to the traditional image sequence method-it is a leaner and better optimize method to compete with shaders, especially because the animation can be fully derived. Another corner not cut. Video is rarely used as a solution because video has frame-drift at run-time, and each video frame does not reliably land on the geometry frame that has the UVs it was originally projected with. The pipeline designed in this research details a solution for this frame-drift by synchronizing each frame of the video to its corresponding geometry frame. This research presents a pipeline an artist can use to create a simulation, and to then assemble it as a 'baked' fluid asset in a game engine without sacrificing the original surface animation, and with marginal of loss of quality.

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