2 Related Work
Many tools, libraries and systems have been designed for
the purpose of creating animations. Commercial systems
such as Maya [1] and 3D Studio Max [5], focus on an
interactive interface for modeling and animation. These
tools are primarily oriented towards kinematic animation,
such as key-framing. They incorporate dynamics in the
form of particle systems and passive dynamics for rigid
bodies by extending their modeling and kinematic animation
systems. Our system differs from these in that it
is tailored towards physics-based animation and control,
rather than modeling or kinematic animation. The control
architecture of DANCE enables active dynamics and
interactive control during physical simulation, rather than
passive dynamics and simple rag doll effects. DANCE
also provides modeling and kinematic functionality, but
does so as an extension of its dynamic capabilities, rather
than vice-versa. Houdini [29] uses procedural networks
to produce simulation and modeling results. DANCE's
components are of a larger granularity than those provided
by Houdini and it does not utilize a procedural network
paradigm.