The elements of nature

Abstract

This updated course on simulating natural phenomena will cover the latest research and production techniques for simulating most of the elements of nature. The presenters will provide movie production, interactive simulation, and research perspectives on the difficult task of photorealistic modeling, rendering, and animation of natural phenomena. The course offers a nice balance of the latest interactive graphics hardware-based simulation techniques and the latest physics-based simulation techniques. Interactive implementations and approximations of complex physics-based simulations will be presented, as well as procedural approximations and combined hybrid techniques. Interactive demonstrations and discussions of implementation details impart a working knowledge of these techniques that can't be acquired by reading papers on the topics.