Fluid simulation is a computer graphic used to develop realistic animation of liquids in modern games. The Art of Fluid Animation describes visually rich techniques for creating fluid-like animations that do not require advanced physics or mathematical skills. It explains how to create fluid animations like water, smoke, fire, and explosions through computer code in a fun manner.
The book presents concepts that drive fluid animation and gives a historical background of the computation of fluids. It covers many research areas that include stable fluid simulation, flows on surfaces, and control of flows. It also gives one-paragraph summaries of the material after each section for reinforcement.
This book includes computer code that readers can download and run on several platforms so they can extend their work beyond what is described in the book. The material provided here is designed to serve as a starting point for aspiring programmers to begin creating their own programs using fluid animation.
Introduction
Observations, Equations, and Numbers
Beavers, Cave Persons, and Fire
From Caves to Greeks: Archimedes, Gold, and Medals
Long Curly Haired Mathematicians, the Abyss and the Airbrush
Euler–Newton Equations or Navier–Stokes Equations
Leonardo
Euler and Continuity
Incompressibility, Continuity, Helmholtz, and Hodge
Euler and the Motion of Fluids
Newton and Viscosity
Navier and Stokes and Their Equations
Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries, and Boundaries
The Early Days of Computational Fluid Dynamics
Kolmogorov and Turbulence
Introduction to Fluid Animation
Discretize! Bugs, Grids, and Bugs Moving through Grids
Intermezzi
Intermezzo Uno: Linear Systems
Intermezzo Due: The General Solution of a Linear System
Intermezzo Tre: Circulant Matrices and the Fourier Transform
Intermezzo Quattro: Numerical Solution of Linear Systems
A Simple Fluid Solver
A Math Horror Flick: Operator Splitting
Code Please?
Bugs Crawling on Donuts, the FFT, and ~60 Lines of C Code
Four-Dimensional Turbulent Vector Fields and Turbulence
Decorating Fluids
The Little Computers Who Can Handle Fluids
The Smart Phones Who Can Handle Fluids
Fluid FX: Version 2.0 of Autodesk Fluid
Show Time! MAYA Fluid Effects
Fluids on Arbitrary Surfaces
Control Freaks! How to Make Fluids Do What We Want
Shooting Cannon Balls in Two Dimensions
Computer Optimizers
The Ad, the Joint, and the Path Back to the Optimizer
Real Experiments, Computer Experiments, and Validation
Spheres Are Such a Drag
Curly Flows behind Spheres, Wavy Flows in Tubes, and Turbulent Plumes between Plates
Epilogue: Let’s Call It Quits
Biography
Jos Stam is a senior research scientist with Autodesk. He was born in the Netherlands and educated in Geneva, Switzerland, where he received dual bachelor degrees in computer science and pure mathematics. In 1989 he moved to Toronto, where he completed his master's and PhD in computer science. His research spans several areas of computer graphics: natural phenomena, physics-based simulation, rendering, and surface modeling, especially subdivision surfaces. He has published papers in all of these areas in journals and at conferences. In 2005 he received the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, one of the most prestigious awards in computer graphics. He also won two Technical Achievement Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and has been featured in Wired magazine.