Mid-level Smoke Control with Fluid Motifs

Fairy with controlled smoke. Red spiral motif. Green star.

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Abstract

Smoking woman Question mark motif
Our motif-based mid-level fluid control allows artists to specify local density patterns that will emerge during fluid simulation.

In this work we introduce the notion that artists should be able to control fluid simulations by providing examples of expected local fluid behavior (for instance, an artist might specify that magical smoke often forms star shapes). As our idea fits between high-level, global pose control and low-level parameter adjustment, we deem it mid-level control. We make our notion concrete by demonstrating a mid-level controller that causes artist-specified density patterns (motifs) to emerge frequently in a two-dimensional smoke simulation, with the goal of providing stylized smoke effects for two-dimensional animations. We achieve this effect by locating areas in the smoke that resemble the target motifs, and tracking these regions with motif particles. From these tracked particles, we build a stylized density field that is used as the target of an off-the-shelf global smoke control algorithm. This feedback control means that the smoke retains fluid-like behavior, while also attaining a stylized appearance suitable to integration with 2d animations.

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