Object-oriented Computer Animation

Recent advances in computer graphics hardware offer an opportunity to extend 3D visualization techniques into a fourth dimension, time. But, computer animation the control and display of models, cameras, and lights in a simulated world is a complex process and software that performs animation should hide this complexity from users. Furthermore, because computer animation is not mature, modem animation systems should be designed to add innovative techniques without discarding investment in existing software. Praised by software researchers throughout the decade, object-oriented technology provides tools to deal with the complexity and change present in computer animation. Object-oriented design creates a natural partitioning of complex systems into manageable pieces called objects. allowing system architects to reuse existing software and to extend existing systems. We used the object-oriented paradigm to design and create the 3D computer graphics animation system OSCAR, the Object-oriented Scene AnimatoR. After a review of object-oriented terminology, we describe a design methodology, system architecture and implementation strategy for animation systems regardless of the object-oriented capabilities of the implementation environment.