In some embodiments, a method is provided. A sinusoidal signal is generated that is representative of a wave at an average surface of a liquid. A distance between the average surface of the liquid and a bottom of the liquid is determined. A characteristic of the sinusoidal signal is adjusted as a function of the distance.

A two-dimensional image is rendered from data for a three-dimensional model. This is done by rendering a shaded image based on the data and rendering an outline image, such as a wireframe image or a silhouette image, based on the data. The outline image is rendered with the shaded image to obtain the two-dimensional image.

A shadow for a three-dimensional model having an infrastructure that includes a bone is generated by projecting the bone onto a surface and generating the shadow on the surface based on a projection of the bone. Projecting the bone includes drawing lines from the virtual light source, through points on the bone, onto the surface and connecting points at which the lines intersect the surface.

Modifying a three-dimensional model includes constructing a bones infrastructure for a polygon mesh, removing edges of polygons in the polygon mesh to reduce a resolution of the polygon mesh, receiving an instruction to reduce a number of bones in the bones infrastructure, reducing the number of bones in the bones infrastructure in response to the instruction, and associate the polygon mesh with the bones infrastructure having a reduced number of bones.

A shadow is generated in a virtual three-dimensional space by adjusting a resolution of a 3D model, projecting elements of the 3D model onto a surface in the virtual 3D space, and rendering a shadow having the adjusted resolution of the 3D model on the surface using the projected elements.

A technique for spatial partitioning and a data structure for storing references to objects in a scene. A grid-based loose octree (GLOtree) is a data structure that combines advantages of a uniform grid-based subdivision method and an octree-based subdivision method to provide a general purpose spatial partitioning method that works well with both static and dynamic scenes. In a GLOtree, objects are located at lower levels of the tree than in the prior art octree. This allows traversals to searc...

Determining a node path through a node graph includes modifying the node graph in accordance with a predetermined platform performance, performing a path finding process through the node graph to obtain the node path, determining if the platform performance has changed, adjusting the node graph to compensate for a change in the platform performance, and re-performing the path finding process through the adjusted node graph to obtain the node path.

In rendering a 3D surface, a computer obtains an initial digital data set that defines a base mesh coarsely approximating the 3D surface, where the base mesh includes vertices connected to form 2D faces. The computer subdivides the 2D faces of the base mesh one or more times to form one or more subdivision meshes, where each subdivision mesh more closely approximates the 3D surface than each preceding mesh, and where each subdivision mesh includes more vertices than each preceding mesh. For each...

A two-dimensional image is rendered from data for a three-dimensional model by detecting silhouette features on the three-dimensional model based on the data, and rendering polygons and the silhouette features to produce the two-dimensional image. The silhouette features are detected by detecting edges of polygons that make up the three-dimensional model, storing coordinates of detected polygon edges in an edge list, determining which of the detected polygon edges are silhouette edges, and marki...

A method of adding primitives in real time to a model to produce a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) of a model includes storing attribute data for each one of the primitives. A ring buffer is provided, having at least one stage, for each vertex of the model which is to have a primitive. Within each ring buffer, data is stored representative of a direction of each one of the primitives. Information is retrieved from the ring buffer by using a pointer, wherein the pointer is incremented and iter...