PIXAR SCIENTIST DISCUSSES IMPORTANCE OF MATH IN ANIMATION
Tony DeRose, Pixar’s senior scientist, gave a lecture on “Math in the Movies” at New York’s Museum of Mathematics. His job consists of translating principles of arithmetic, geometry and algebra into computer software that can render objects or power physics engines. He gave the talk in part to explain why aspiring animators and game designers need to have a solid base in mathematics.
DeRose has far more than just a basic understanding of math. He earned a PhD in computer science, focusing on computational physics and spent a decade as a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington.
“Computer animation, DeRose says, frequently deals with modeling objects at greater scale and detail than even physicists typically deal with in their computations,” ... Thus, most of his work revolves around finding better algorithms to create that type of scale efficiently.
See the full story here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/7/4074956/pixar-senior-scientist-derose-explains-how-math-makes-movies-games