Yichen He MSc Dissertation 2014/15

Getting up close and personal with a virtual scorpion using the Oculusu Rift

Supervised by S.Maddock

Abstract

The scorpion animations are used widely in movies and games. A scorpion is a typical arthropod with special walking pattern. The attractive features of scorpion are that it has two pincers and a tail with a poisonous sting. This project plans to simulate an animation of a scorpion.

The aim of this project is to simulate an scorpion on a desert using animation. The project focuses on rigging, animation clips animated from behaviors of real scorpions, robotics rules on choosing clips in the environment while using an existing scorpion model and render system. The result of animation will be played on the Oculus Rift, an augment reality headset, to give the audiences immersive feelings. 

The project mainly did following work. A polygon-mesh scorpion model was rigged with a virtual skeleton. Animation clips of basic behaviors were created using keyframe animation. The animation clips were organized in state machines. Behavior-based robotics and subsumption architecture were used to control the output clips of scorpion, which created a procedural animation. The animation was played in Oculus Rift using the cameras of Oculus Rift SDK.