CPSC 314 (Jan 2006)       Assignment 1 -- Coding

1. [0 marks] Download and compile the template code:
   http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs314/Vjan2006/a1/a1_code.tar.gz or copy it directly as shown below:

   cp -R ~cs314/Vjan2006/a1_code .
   cd a1_code
   make
   

   Type 'a' to see a very simple arm animation.
   Type 'k' several times to see the keyframes that are being used to create the animation. The keyframes are stored in the file keyframe.txt.
   Type 'q' to quit.

2. [5 marks] Create a function taperCyl(h,r1,r2,nslides)that draws a ``tapered cylinder'' as a function of the 4 parameters, as shown below. nslices will be the number of polygons used to represent the tapered cylinder, which can be considered to be open on either end. You will be using it as a modeling primitive for some of the body parts of your monkey. For this part of the question, just add a single tapered cylinder primitive to the scene.

   You will be computing all the vertex locations. First use GL_LINE_LOOP in order to draw the tapered cylinder in wire frame. Once this works, compute a surface normal for each vertex and call glNormal3f() before each glVertex3f() call in order to assign a correct surface normal to each vertex, and change to using GL_POLYGON, GL_QUADS, or GL_QUAD_STRIP, thus producing a solid-shaded tapered cylinder.
   

3. [4 marks] Build your articulated figure. You should make use of your tapered cylinder at least once in your character. Use an appropriate hierarchy of transformations. Implement it using appropriately structured code. You may want to define separate geometry for each type of link, or you may want to use scaled versions of the various glutSolidX() primitives, where X can be any of Sphere, Cube, Cone, Torus, or Teapot. Draw your monkey in an appropriate ``rest pose'' --- typically this is a simple standing pose. Make your monkey as colourful as you like.

4. [4 marks] Add the ability to animate your monkey figure by making use of Params[n] variable, where n=2,3, ... to animate the position and joint angles of your monkey. These are animated according to the keyframe data in the keyframe.txt file. Note that the first parameter for each keyframe, Param[1], is reserved for modeling the relative time between keyframes (in seconds).

   Each line of keyframe data will specify all of the ``degrees of freedom of the character''. Below is an example of how you might do this, although I recommend that you come up with your own set of degrees-of-freedom that work for your particular figure and the animation that you have in mind. You could also use this to animate camera parameters, colour parameters, or the movement of other objects. Lastly, you could also use additional keystroke bindings to interactively animate parts of your scene.

   keyframe 0.4 2.0 1.0 10 20 10 10 -20 10 10 40 50 -40 50 10 20
   

   where:

   parameter 1:  time stamp (ignore this for now)
   parameter 2:  body location, x
   parameter 3:  body location, y
   parameter 4:  body lean
   parameter 5:  right hip angle
   parameter 6:  right knee angle
   parameter 7:  right ankle angle
   parameter 8:  left hip angle
   parameter 9:  left knee angle
   parameter 10:  left ankle angle
   parameter 11:  left wing angle
   parameter 12:  right wing angle
   parameter 13:  neck forward bend
   parameter 14:  head forward bend
   parameter 15:  head twist
   parameter 16:  head roll
   

5. [10 marks] Create an interesting animation for your character. Convert it to an MPEG animation file by dumping PPM images from your application and then using ffmpeg to compile all the individual frames into a single MPEG animation file.

   Because you will need to temporarily create a large number of images that will consume a fair bit of disk space, create a temporary directory /tmp/foo where foo is your user name. Edit the appropriate line in the dumpPPM() function call in order to ensure that image files get written to this directory. Now hit 'd' when running your code and you should get a large number of PPM files being written to this directory of the form imgNNN.ppm, where NNN is the frame number. To convert these image files to an MPEG movie, use

   ffmpeg -i img%03d.ppm -r 24 a1.mp4
   

   Don't forget to delete all your PPM files once your movie has been created. You can play your movie using

   ffplay a1.mp4
   

   If you want to keep your movies reasonably small in size, I recommend choosing an appropriate window size for your animation. For example, a 500 x 300 video will be approximately 1/4 the size of a 1000 x 600 video.

Hand-in Instructions

• Hand in a printed copy of your code and a printed copy of your README.txt file. This can be handed in in-class or using the CPSC 314 hand-in box (#20) in the basement of the CICSR building (any time before 5pm on the due date of the assignment). Create a root directory in your account called cs314. Later all the assignment handin files should be put in this directory.
• For assignment 1, create a folder called assn1 under cs314 and put all the source files that you want to handin in it, including your "makefile" and your README.txt file. Do not use subdirectories. Submit your movie file (a1.mp4) if it is less than 1.5 Mb in size. If it is larger than this, you should instead provide a URL in your README.txt file that points to a location from which we can download your movie.
• In your README file, please describe how to run your program, what functionalities you have implemented, as well as any kind of information you would like to give us for getting credit for partial implementation. If you don't complete all the requirements, please state clearly what you have tried, what problems you are having, and what you think might be promising solutions.
• The assignment should be handed in with the command:

     handin cs314 assn1
  

  This will handin your assn1 directory tree by making a copy of your assn1 directory. Note that subdirectories will not be copied. If you want to know more about this handin command, use: man handin.