International University in Germany

IT245 Introduction to Computer Graphics, Winter Trimester 2003, Project Work

 

Chess Animation using POV-Ray

 

 

Students (BSc2001): Seidel Lopez M., Sang-Wook Kim, Hrushikesh Vartak

Instructors: Karl Rohr, Stefan Wörz

 

Students on campus do all kinds of sports for recreation. Playing chess is surely not one of the most physically demanding sports; however, it is definitely one of the most intellectually demanding. With this chess game students (and other volunteers) have to be very careful: these chess pieces strike back! As you can see on the images, some of the pieces develop quite efficient weapons. Surely, they are not quite as sophisticated as pieces from wizard chess (Harry Potter), but we guess these pieces would play at least a draw against their magical counterparts.

 

Below shown are sample images from an animated chess game as an impressive outcome of a Computer Graphics project carried out by three second year BSc students in the winter trimester 2003. The whole animation is 184 seconds long and consists of about 3000 images. The modelling of the pieces as well as the animation, involved the application of Computer Graphics methods like 3D geometric transformations, constructive solid geometry, and motion animation. In addition, the implementation including the modelling of the pieces was coded by hand; i.e. no fancy "click-tools" were used. Instead, the two most popular programming techniques among students were applied: copy and paste, as well as trial and error. For rendering, the raytracer POV-Ray was applied.

 

To experience the (real) animation including sound the reader is invited to click here (33MB).