Dandelion Generation

I. Summary 

Dandelions have many different pieces to their flower (seedlets) that have many different characteristics to make them look unique and give them a slightly fuzzy appearance. The goal of this project is to generate dandelions based on these characteristics. It will also allow a user to alter the characteristics of each dandelion to explore how it changes the overall appearance of the flower.

The 3D scene that will be generated from this will be a single floor of any given size, holding the given number of dandelions. The user can control how many dandelions and what size the floor of the scene is. Other than the floor and dandelions, there will be nothing else in the scene. A light source will be placed somewhere to highlight the dandelions, and a camera will exist for the user to explore the different dandelions close up and far away.

The rendering pipeline will be modified at the Modeling Transformation. The dandelion(s) must be created and positioned as a model in a scene before they can be taken in for the rest of the pipeline.

II. Objectives

• Generate a dandelion using particle systems 
• Make a camera that allows a user to center on a dandelion and move around different dandelions from different distances. 
• Make an interface to control the different seedlet characteristics (number of seedlets, number of smaller seedlet pieces, width of seedlets, length of seedlets, length of smaller seedlet pieces etc.) 
• Allow multiple dandelions to be generated. 

III. System & Software

I’ll be using OpenGL with C++ on a Windows8 machine with Visual Studio 2012. 

IV. Project Components

• Keyboard (camera) controls: Controls the camera using the arrow keys to circle around each dandelion. J and K will be used to switch between current and previous dandelion (if more than one). A and S will be used to zoom in and zoom out respectively. O will be used to view a camera not focused on any dandelion. 
• GUI: There will be a gray box on the side of the window that has sliders for how many seedlets on the flower, how many hairs on the seedlet, length of the seedlet, length of the hairs, and width of the seedlets and width of the hairs. 
• The scene window containing the generated dandelions and floor.

V. Project Timeline 

• Midpoint (Week 6) : Have multiple dandelions generate on a plane. No differences amongst dandelions yet, just the set up for the scene and the different components of the dandelion set up in the code. This includes the camera moving to different dandelions. 
• Week 8: The dandelions should be generated different from each other. 
• Week 10: Allow the user to modify the seedlet characteristics. 
• Week 11: Have all objectives finished and polished. 

VI. Final Presentation

The project will be demonstrated with a short slideshow of what was done throughout the project, with pictures of scenes / screenshots of the project from different points of the project. There will be a short demo of interesting features at the end of the presentation.