Wuhao Wei MSc Dissertation 2014/15

Spider Animation: Getting up close and personal with a virtual spider using the Oculus Rift

Supervised by S.Maddock

Abstract

Previous work on arthropod animation can be divided into two main categories: data driven approach and physical modeling approach. The locomotion of various arthropods has been extensively studied in biology and robotics. A simulation of arthropod could be used in various meaningful scenarios such as animation movies, computer games, etc.

The main aim of the project is to develop realistic spider animation. A subsidiary aim is to enable people to be immersed in the animation by using the Oculus Rift. The general animation adopted for the project is procedural animation. Two main approaches proposed to control the animation are: scene graph and hierarchy with rigging and skinning.

In this project, basic spider animation such as run, walk and turn was created. The spider has advanced behaviors: avoid obstacles, avoid falling from the edge of the floor, run to food and run away from danger. Users could place different objects such as food and obstacles to interact with the spider. Three kinds of cameras were implemented to enable users to have a full view under Oculus Rift.