Modeling ocean waves and interaction between objects and ocean water for cartoon animation

We present a scheme for the animation of ocean waves in a recognizable drawn animation cartoon style. This consists principally of two parts: the first part is the ocean surface generated by a procedural model which governs the dynamics of the ocean surface and rendered with stylized whitewater forms over the ocean wave crests; the second part is water effects caused by interactions between the ocean water and obstacle objects, such as waves crashing against obstacles-like rocks or boats and forms surrounding objects, and those effects are simulated with different hierarchical models. The ocean surface can be used either alone or in conjunction with effects caused by the interactions according to the scene. With minimum user intervention, i.e., specification of a few parameters, our model is able to generate cartoon ocean wave animations using these procedural methods, as shown by examples given in the paper. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.