Highly deformable material for animation and collision processing

Published under the name Marie-Paule GascuelInternational audienceThis paper presents a method for modeling and animating highly deformable material such as clay, dough or mud. The animated objects are inelastic: they absorb deformations and seldom come back to their initial shape. Their surfaces are smooth and fit with the objects they are in contact with. Moreover, their topology may change during animation sequences. In particular, they can break into pieces. The new model presented here is an hybrid one. Each object is composed of an elastic coating over a discrete inelastic layer. The elastic material is defined by an implicit formulation that is particularly convenient for modeling objects whose topology changes over time. Well-suited to automatic collision detection and response, the elastic layer generates and maintains exact contact surfaces between interacting objects. Response forces computed along contact surfaces are transmitted to the internal structure that deforms accordingly. The whole simulation is produced at interactive rates