The Enhanced Animation System (EAS) for Xfrog enables you to accurately simulate the natural motion and dynamic movement of plants and trees in reaction to real-world forces.
Formulated on the basis of observational studies of plants and trees, the EAS is a set of custom scripts and techniques that build upon and expand the core animation functionality of the Xfrog 3D plant modeling and animation system.
The development of the EAS was based on a few key observations.
1). Wind is the primary instigator of movement in trees, and it comes in several flavors, such as a gentle breeze, a strong gale, or an intermittent gust. The effect wind has on trees is, likewise, varied - a slight flutter, a slow sway, a violent swing.
2). The movement of leaves and branches due to wind is quite often more pronounced at the extremities of trees compared to the inner section of trees.
3). Similarly, the leaves and branches at the tops of trees tend to move more than those lower down.
4). The stronger the wind, the more the resultant movement is passed up the tree’s branching levels, progressively - first from leaves to branches, and then from branches to the trunk.
5). Lastly, in addition to wind, any number of external entities can apply forces that pull, push, tug, drag, hit, or weigh down on trees, resulting in an altogether different flow of movement through the tree than that caused by the wind.
In every case, several factors come into play, such as weight, surface area, constraints, flexibility, and inertia.
These observations informed the development of the EAS.
Wind Layer 1: Precision targeted flutter with falloff control
Take precise targeted control of generalized leaf and branch flutter/sway with the help of a user-friendly interface.
Wind Layer 2: Directional movement with progressive motion inheritance
Control the extent of directional leaf/branch movement, as well as the delay by which it gets transmitted further up the parent branching levels.
Once set up, animating just 2 parameters is enough to cover most scenarios of changing weather conditions, thanks to an intricate chain of linked dependencies. In any case, just about all the parameters can be animated, with the values being smoothly interpolated between keyframes.
In Xfrog, altering the frequency of noise-controlled randomized motion during an animation would give jarring results. With the EAS, this limitation is no longer an issue.
An accurate simulation of leaf/branch drag and follow-through, which is typically the result of movement caused by entities other than wind.
Currently in development.
The EAS helps to create realistically animated tree and plant assets intended for final use in either pre-rendered or real-time 3D applications. It should be able to work with most, if not all, of Xfrog's library of over 9000 plant species.
If you feel your own tree animations are a little…wooden (sorry), get in touch at info@maxanima.com to take them to the next level.