procedural graphics

me? why? what? who?

tom kelly
twak.org
glasgow
arizona state
 content crunch ;)

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DTI:[1] “Exuberant youth to sustainable maturity”

 procedural?

How much of the 3D artist's work can we

automate?
Can we imagine new tools to create geometry?
 why procedural?
Cost
Quality
Scale of environments
Sensitive to environment (free cpu cycles,
bandwidth, boredom, storyline)
Reduces outsourcing
Automated optimizations (LOD,
portals)
Acornsoft's Elite

1984
Procedural techniques
to save memory
A massive universe to
explore
 The Produkkt's Kkrieger

96Kb (!)
 Procedural Inc's CityEngine
Müller's Company
For video games, film, architecture, geology and
simulation!
$4000
 IDV's SpeedTree
Mature company offering commercial offerings to
many video game developers.
 EA's Spore
For people at home!
Procedural for
guaranteed worst case
UGC
1 million creatures in
Sporepedia in 2 weeks
 flora is a solved problem
Lots of work in the 80's
Prusinkiewicz &
Lindenmayer's
'Algorithmic Beauty of
Plants' sums up a lot of
the techniques.
L-systems etc...
 Modelling the Mighty Maple (1985)
Spline sections over
existing
X-rayed bark bump
maps
Leafs as polygons
Jules Bloomenthal
 Synthetic Topiary (1994)
L-Systems!
With a feedback loop
Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, Mark James, Radomír Měch
Visual Models of Plants Interacting
with their Environment (1996)
More L-Systems...
Interacting processes
represent environment
Detailed physical model
of light, water etc...
Měch, Prusinkiewicz
 fauna is very difficult

Are we modeling the growth of an

organism or the outcome of growth
Many physical interactions
Pre-Darwinian morphology
Curves!
Architecture is easier...
 architecture is a hot area
Lots of work in and around 'Procedural Urban
Modeling'
It is being used in the industry (Frontier), but no
real standards or techniques are being published
from the commercial side.
Here's the highlights from the
academic angle...
 Procedural Modelling of Cities
(2001)
Mass models
Self sensitive L-systems for streets
Parish, Müller
 Instant Architecture (2003)
Rectilinear subdivision for creation of facades
Decisions 'baked in' until the entire building has been
evaluated
Wonka et al
 Procedural Modelling of Buildings
(2006)
Split Shape Grammar (massive library?)
Müller, Wonka et al
 My Project - Sity

sity
straight skeleton
meta window
 next?
Non-flat terrain
Control grammars
Learn something about architecture
Catalogue geometric techniques for a procedural
library?
Find a few core techniques for a procedural
toolkit?
twak.org
:)