POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Snowmacro: Good news and final errors. : Snowmacro: Good news and final errors. Server Time
30 Jul 2024 10:25:10 EDT (-0400)
  Snowmacro: Good news and final errors.  
From: [GDS|Entropy]
Date: 27 Feb 2009 05:30:36
Message: <49a7c0cc$1@news.povray.org>
Regarding the snow/icicle macro, good news:
1) Fixed icicles not blobbing together
2) Fixed icicles not blobbing with the snow
3) Optimized the random vector generator to target min/max extent
4) Fixed icicles growing through the target object
5) Continuing to extract segments of code which perform specific functions 
into their own reusable macros...lots more work to be done there.

ToDo:
1) Make blob scale more object appropriate with less user intervention
2) Decrease failed tests on objects such as trees and quartics
3) Implement clamped random "y" scaling on blobs
4) Create a "test mode" to allow users to visualize snow/ice before final 
render
5) Create more modes, such as snow only, icicle only, or cakeicing

There is obviously still a good bit of work to be done in general before 
this is truly worthy of release, but most of the big issues are gone now.

I would like to thank everyone for their assistance thusfar; you have taught 
me many things, I appreciate that, and your patience. You will all get 
credit in the final release. :-)

---

I have a small problem that I know is another headslapper, and could use a 
bit of help in its resolution. I've been looking at it too long to see the 
answer though. The file is in p.t.s-f (post "final errors"), and I will be 
referencing line numbers in it. It looks like it got garbled somehow, so I 
attached the actual pov file to that post in response.

If you look at lines 76 and 77, you see that I fill the array with valid 
vectors on 76, and have a test sphere on 77. The test sphere goes generally 
in the right places when used there, but only one instance of it appears 
when I use the vectors on line 136. To see what I am talking about, render 
it as is, then comment line 77 and uncomment the blob starting on 121, but 
leave out the "i" loop, and render. See? Only one instance (that crap is not 
what the icicles are going to look like).

The way I'm making icicles is to take an initial valid vector obtained in 
the first loop (line 63) and decrementing the "y" vector using the second 
loop (line 69). Do I need a 2d array? I think I'm only filling the array 
with a single instance of an "icicle", as perhaps each loop of "k" 
overwrites the previous line 76 array entries, which is why the test sphere 
on 77 behaves properly, but anything using the array on 136 does not. Maybe 
Array[i][k] on 76 would fix this?

I've tried a few methods of doing that, which all failed, so I'm obviously 
doing it wrong, if thats even the solution.

I am tired and I apologize for my horrid, painfully parenthetical manner of 
delineation. O_o

I welcome any other optimizations you might find appropriate.

ian


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