Procedural Clouds

Procedural rendering, modeling, shading and texturing are of growing importance in computer graphics and animation, and, to date, there is no other comprehensive book covering these topics. This book contains a toolbox of procedures upon which programmers can build a library of procedural textures and objects. It also includes extensive explanations of how these functions work, and how to design new functions. The revision includes updates to the core original text and an additional six chapters. These new chapters introduce and present to the graphics community the state of the art concerning the procedural approach. New chapters include: Cellular Texture Generation, volumetric Cloud Modeling with Implicit Functions, Interacting with Virtual Actors Rendering with Adaptive Level of Detail. * Written at a usable level by the developers of the techniques, including Academy Technical Achievement Award-winners Ken Perlin and Darwyn Peachey* Serves as a sourcebook for those writing rendering systems, shadings, and animations* Provides a toolbox of specific procedures and basic primitive functions for producing realistic images* Describes procedural character animation techniques, including facial animation* Discusses the design and implementation of essential procedural primitives such as noise and turbulence* Procedures are presented in C code segments or in RenderManâ shading language* CD-ROM contains the code from within the book for easy implementation.* * Introduces volumetric cloud modeling.* Shows how to exploit the inherent multi-resolution capability of procedural models.* Discusses the use of genetic techniques for generating textures.> * Describes the use of fractals for generating realistic mountains, > landscapes, and planets.