"Carl Hoff" <hof### [at] wtnet> wrote in message news:403392f3@news.povray.org...
> >
> > Maybe you're needing a way to create the path based on what
> > the room shape is and obstacles in it?
>
> No... I'm more thinking along the lines of having no room, no floors,
> no walls.  Do you have the "3D Pipes" screen saver that comes with
> Windows.

Yep. I understand. With trails being only a segment of a pipe, longer or
shorter based on speed I presume.

> the start of each path I want each "Light Flyer" parked with
> its top pointed in the y-direction but after it makes a few turns
> I'm not sure how to tell POV-Ray where up is any longer.
>
> At the end of path 1 I need to know: forward = y up = -x
> At the end of path 2 I need to know: forward = y up = -z
>
> However all this at the moment is overshadowed by the
> problem that I can't even animate the trails forming.
>
> Am I defining the problem clearly?

As a bell... I'm just not thinking good this time of night. And I'm
beginning to think this thread ought to move on to the general or
advanced-users group.

A motion spline and sphere_sweep can definitely be done, unchanging in
number of points but changing vectors so that it moves away from its last
position and stretching in a manner consistent with speed. What I hadn't
considered before is that you're intending to orient the objects in more
than one plane so that the objects will have varying ups. But that shouldn't
matter really. Hmmmm, before I forget what I'm saying I'll write it out in
SDL form to make more sense of it.

spline {
    linear_spline
    5,
    t1,<x1,y1,z1>,
    t2,<x2,y2,z2>,
    t3,<x3,y3,z3>,
    t4,<x4,y4,z4>,
    t5,<x5,y5,z5>
}

So the variables would need to range farther apart as time goes by. Say all
start at zero, next the 1's remain at zero but each of the others increase,
with other t's always being of higher value than the previous. The xyz 2's
through 5's would need to increase toward their intended paths while
shifting from the 5's back toward the 1's as time goes along.

Just wish I were thinking more clearly to figure what would be the best way
to do that.

Bob H.

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