Incorporating animation technologies into tools for colonial American education

This paper will describe the integration of animation and visual effects technologies into the development of tools geared for colonial American education. Projects discussed will include the incorporation of crowd simulation software and full body motion capture to recreate Revolutionary War battles, laser scan acquisition of excavated archaeological artifacts, and recreation of historic structures through the use of modeling and animation software. Through the use of these technologies, the margin of error in representation can be lessened, and the level of realism for the enduser can be accentuated. Also, by utilizing these tool sets, it may be possible to create a more engaging educational presentation for schoolchildren.

Current coursework for Colonial American education is consistent with teaching methods developed during the middle of the last century, relying on limited visual information to illustrate points. Through a series of projects, a number of digital assets were created to reinforce crucial points in the lesson. The first of these involved a recreation of a colonial era structure, the James and Ann Whitall House, a Quaker plantation built in 1748. Adjacent to the house was Fort Mercer, where the Battle of Red Bank was fought during the American Revolutionary War. This was also reconstructed digitally, and crowd simulations were developed using Massive Prime and motion capture data from our Vicon MX3 system to recreate possible battle scenarios. Another element of the battle was the waterfront, including the destruction of the H.M.S. Augusta; the ship was recreated to detailed specifications, utilizing dynamic simulations for both the water and the riggings. In addition to the course-work, much of the information was converted to web friendly formats for distribution on the Whitall House website