RepTile: how to skin a dinosaur

Creating repetitive geometric features such as scales or cobblestones for computer graphics is difficult and tedious to perform manually, particularly for seamless 3D surfaces. However, procedural approaches rarely provide the fine-grained control required for motion picture production. Representation of shape detail does not fit easily into traditional modeling (geometry) or texturing (displacement) techniques, especially when animation is required. We present a highly controllable procedural system, RepTile, for efficiently creating, animating and rendering such features developed for Walking With Dinosaurs 3D (WWD).