School of fish

Separation, Alignment, Cohesion. These are the simple rules that dictate how a school of fish (or a flock) behaves. My good friend and classmate Thomas Komair wrote the AI that simulates the flocking behavior. I took care of the framework, the basic tools and routines that he would need in order to implement and debug the project. Thomas did a great job and it is my belief that this video is a modest tribute to the incredible beauty and complexity of our natural world.

Quaternion Interpolation

This video demos various methods for quaternion interpolation. The tip of the spaceship travels along the surface of the unit quaternion hypersphere and defines a 3D curve that is drawn in yellow. For more information, I can provide the application with explanations on the various interpolation methods. But simply put, this demo shows the quaternion equivalent of a bezier curve or cubic spline for a 3D vector.

Deferred Lighting

This video demos deferred lighting. It is a very common technique nowadays. I have 14 lights in the scene. It is a small number compared to what the technique can actually handle. However in my case since I wanted a light rotating around each column 14 was enough. I do see the appeal of DL and the benefits on the long run.

Path Finding

This was a project for an AI class. The goal was to implement A* with path smoothing, simplification, heuristics, and rubber banding. The Instructor gave us a framework and took care of the rendering, the input and the animation. The focus of the project was on A*.

Parallax Mapping

This is a simple demo of parallax mapping. It shows how using a depth and normal map one can emulate the illusion of parallax and therefore depth on a flat geometry. The depth factor variable controls how deep the ground goes. When it is zero, the technique becomes normal mapping