Animation using physical models, by generating movements according to the laws of mechanics, makes it possible to create complex, interactive animated virtual worlds. Precision is less important than in the engineering sciences, but the complexity of the scenes to be animated can be dizzying, as in cinema. What's more, response time is a decisive quality factor for interactive applications such as video games. Meeting these challenges requires new approaches to modeling and physical computing: maximum simplification of models, automatic modeling based on data, adaptation to the subjectivity of the observer, hierarchization of interactions, trade-offs between precision and computing time, deployment on parallel architectures.
These notions will be addressed through different examples of physical models: particles, rigid, articulated, continuous media; as well as cross-cutting issues, such as contact detection and response.
