Practical Animation of Turbulent Splashing Water

Abstract

Despite recent advances in fluid animation, producing small-scale detail of turbulent water still remains challenging. In this paper, we extend the well-accepted particle level set method in an attempt to integrate the dynamic behavior of splashing water easily into a fluid animation system. Massless marker particles that still escape from the main body of water, in spite of the level set correction, are transformed into water particles to represent subcelllevel features that are hard to capture with a limited grid resolution. These physical particles are then moved in the air through a particle simulation system that, combined with the level set, creates realistic turbulent splashing. In the rendering stage, the particle s physical properties such as mass and velocity are exploited to generate a natural appearance of water droplets and spray. In order to visualize the hybrid water, represented in both level set and water particles, we also extend a Monte Carlo ray tracer so that the particle agglomerates are smoothed, thickened, if necessary, and rendered efficiently. The effectiveness of the presented technique is demonstrated with several examples of pictures and animations.