Computer graphics animation often lacks interaction between rigid object and granular material. In this paper, we propose a method for the deformation of the ground surface that consists of granular material when it is penetrated by a rigid body object in motion. Meanwhile, the motion of the rigid object is also affected due to the collision with the ground surface. Our simulation model concerns: updating the motion of object, the collision detection between the rigid object and the ground surface, the distribution of the ground granular material and the deformation of the ground surface. Our contribution is that we present a method to simulate the interaction between the ground granular material and the rigid body object in motion. Moreover, a render to texture method is presented to accelerate the ray casting collision detection between the ground surface and the object. And, our implementation for the method can be simulated at interactive frame rates.

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We propose a set of path planning tools including path generator, cost map generator, and path editor for racing games. The user can define the race by providing a racetrack as a 3D model and weights of the devised turn and heuristic functions in our system. Then, the proposed cost map generator automatically generates necessary information of the racetrack including cost map and distance to finish of any position on the race track. Different from the traditional A* problem, in our research the obstacles are dynamic and there are multiple sources and destinations. Our approach generates the path of each racer on the basis of time slots to which the path finding method applies on the fly. To further guarantee the quality of the path, we implement path smoothing using a Gaussian filter and provide an off-line path editor that allows users to edit the path in time-space domain intuitively, flexibly, and effectively. Our tools have been verified in a horse racing game to generate natural racer behaviors, demonstrating realistic and exciting racing.

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We propose a race path synthesis framework based on a data-driven approach that provides good controllability for synthesizing race paths with characteristics preserved for racer animations. We introduce formation field, a data structure that samples regions in formation space that contains formations of exciting and realistic race paths, generated using a set of collected race paths in a path database. By traversing the regions according to a given constraint, we generate a path in formation space that defines how to synthesize the desired race path by interpolation. Because the new race path is synthesized from existing paths with quality guaranteed, it also provides the same level of quality. As the experimental and user study results show, our framework produces good results effectively and is suitable for both real-time applications such as horse racing games and race-path-generating tools.