BU CAS CS 480

Introduction to Computer Graphics

Spring 1997

Programming Assignment 3: 2-D Vivarium

Due before class on Thursday March 20

You will program a 2-D vivarium: a simulated 2-D world with polygonal creatures moving around.

• To build your vivarium, you will first need to construct two creatures using the shape design tool from the previous assignment. Working versions of shape design tools can be found on CGL in ~cs480/courseware/p2 after Friday, February 23. You will probably want to save your shapes to a file along with their local coordinate frames for use in P3.

• In the vivarium program, creatures should be stored and manipulated as display list objects. The creatures you design should have parts that move: wings, arms, fins, antennae, tentacles, etc. Use OpenGL transforms to control the motion of each creature and its parts.

  Creatures should face in the direction they are moving. For instance, a frog should be facing the direction in which it hops.

• Creatures in the vivarium should react to where other creatures are and move accordingly. Your creatures can have a prey/predator relationship, a courtship/mating relationship, etc. For example you could have a bug being chased by a spider, or a fish eluding an eager suitor. This means that the path your creatures take should be based on where other creatures are. You will need to use bounding boxes for computing inter-creature distances and collisions.

• At no point should your creatures go outside the window. If a creature comes to a window edge, it should turn and change direction to stay within the window. To keep track of where creatures are, compute bouding boxes for each creature and clip against the window borders.

• Make it possible for a user to add chunks of food to the vivarium by clicking the mouse. Be sure to draw the food on the screen, and make it disappear once it has been eaten. Food is eaten by the first creature whose bounding box covers it.

Demos and Grading

Your program's source files are to be electronically submitted by using the submit program on cgl. The code you submit should conform with the program assignment guidelines.

Part of your grade for this programming assignment will be based on your giving a short demo (2-3 minutes) in the CGL cluster. You will be expected to talk about how your program works, and we will see how well your program performs on some test examples. Demos will be scheduled from 2-5 on the assignment due date.

Start programming early.

Extra Credit

Test Cases

Page Created: Jan 2, 1997      
Last Modified: Jan 2, 1997
Maintained by: Stan Sclaroff