Real-Time Animation of Particles and Seaweeds in Underwater Scenes

Water is one of the most important natural phenomena to be rendered in computer graphics. Although ocean waves animation has been well studied in Computer graphics, only few studies have been done for underwater animation. In this paper, we present a new real-time method for animation of suspended particles and seaweeds in underwater scenes. One of the main advantages of this method, compared to other approaches, is the real-time animation of submerged objects by taking into account some natural underwater forces that govern their movements, such as forces generated by water surface in deep and shallow waters as well as underwater currents. Taking into account forces generated by ocean surface is an original approach in Computer Graphics. In addition, real-time animation of complex underwater scenes composed of a great number of particles and seaweeds can be performed by the use of appropriate levels of details.