Physics Simulation for Movies

Graduate / Professional

This course covers computational methods for simulating physics in movies. In particular, we learn state-of-the-art methods for simulating fluids (fire and water) and solids (muscles, clothing, and skin). The algorithms discussed span offline techniques suitable for movies and touch on how they can be adapted into real-time techniques for games. We cover finite difference and finite element representations and solver practicalities such as conjugate gradients, preconditioning, and Newton iteration. Prerequisite: The student must have taken CPSC 578 or its equivalent . Experience with linear algebra (e.g. MATH 222 or 225 equivalents), Newtonian physics (e.g. PHYS 171 or 181 equivalents), and two semesters of programming experience will be assumed. The student should be able to read and write in an imperative programming language like C/C++ or Java. HTBA