Masters

I have indeed, and I have been offered a few good ideas along with one I suggested myself. But I'm having trouble making up my mind, and so I made this thread to see if anyone can suggest something that really grabs me.

It just seems like quite a significant decision, and I'm little nervous about committing, I guess.

as far as I can see, the graphics is top knotch, the theoretical frameworks has been laid out even though I love the field, I think more exciting stuff can be done in animation. in photorealistic renderings, it's always the animations that give it away. ai based articulate motion? something better then what we got.

Actually, computer graphics is a very broad field of study (which has little to do with DirectX or OpenGL API knowledge) including animation, material simulation (cloth, fluid), object reconstruction, photorealistic rendering, collision detection, and even things that have no visual effect, such as spacial partitioning and culling. So there's a huge amount of theory not yet laid out in areas well beyond the familiar real-time rasterisation most of use use in games.

But you're thinking along the same lines as I was when I suggested my own idea. I thought of taking a typical FK animation, maybe obtained through IK or motion capture, and seeing how you can use dynamics to interfere with the animation.

Do you think that's a fair enough thing to try? Has it been done before (outside of inverse kinematics, of course)?

ya I didn't mean to say it's a closed area of study, it's just got a good foundation, which animation doesn't have. I consider them both exciting. I'm not to versed in the field, I know there are physically based muscle and skin deformation models. but movement I don't know, I think most stuff is motion captured. one thing is sure, whatever is there isn't good enought lol. skin and muscles still don't hang/move the way they should.

Tim