Creating Procedural Animation for the Terrestrial Locomotion of Tentacled Digital Creatures

Abstract

This thesis presents a prototype system to develop procedural animation for the goal-directed terrestrial locomotion of tentacled digital creatures. Creating locomotion for characters with multiple highly deformable limbs is time and labor intensive. This prototype system presents an interactive real-time physically-based solution to procedurally create tentacled creatures and simulate their goal-directed movement about an environment. Artistic control over both the motion path of the creature and the localized behavior of the tentacles is maintained. This system functions as a stand-alone simulation and a tool has been created to integrate it into production software. Applications include use in visual effects and animation where generalized behavior of tentacled creatures is required.