I was playing with ripples recentyl, answering another question on this
server and now I'm the one that's stuck. When I animated some waves with
phase clock and had the clock go from 0 to 1, it looked like the ripples
were moving inward, toward the center, instead of away from...

Plus, it looks like the ripples extend forever... I would like to see
them get smaller and not affect the surface the further from the center
the ripples get. I would normally try to get this effect by

 ....
normal { spherical
                normal_map { [ 0.0 ripples 0 ]
                                          [ 1.0 ripples 1 ] } }
....

But this doens't work because ripples cannot be used in normal map
statements (according to the docs) but it DOES work, unfortunately, even
with number_of_waves set to 1, the center of the ripple is not at the
origin,but selected randomly...

Does anyone have a solution to center the waves on the origin (so they
can be accurately moved) or anther way to give them this kind of
"extinction" quality so they disappear the further away they get form
the center?

--
Josh English
eng### [at] spiritonecom
www.spiritone.com/~english

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Josh English wrote:
> 
> I was playing with ripples recentyl, answering another question on this
> server and now I'm the one that's stuck. When I animated some waves with
> phase clock and had the clock go from 0 to 1, it looked like the ripples
> were moving inward, toward the center, instead of away from...
> 
> Plus, it looks like the ripples extend forever... I would like to see
> them get smaller and not affect the surface the further from the center
> the ripples get. I would normally try to get this effect by
> 
>  ....
> normal { spherical
>                 normal_map { [ 0.0 ripples 0 ]
>                                           [ 1.0 ripples 1 ] } }
> ....
> 
> But this doens't work because ripples cannot be used in normal map
> statements (according to the docs) but it DOES work, unfortunately, even
> with number_of_waves set to 1, the center of the ripple is not at the
> origin,but selected randomly...
> 
> Does anyone have a solution to center the waves on the origin (so they
> can be accurately moved) or anther way to give them this kind of
> "extinction" quality so they disappear the further away they get form
> the center?
> 
> --
> Josh English
> eng### [at] spiritonecom
> www.spiritone.com/~english

There are some mysteries about both waves and ripples that have
managed to elude me for a long time as well. While reading
through your problem though a thought occured to me that might
help. Since a ripple will by it's nature form aways concentricly
from the origin like when you throw a stone in the water it's
waves form outside the impact region. If you want them to start
to dissapate as they move outward maybe you could add a clock
value to the scale of the normal. Something like:

normal{
 ripples 1 
 scale< 0.1+1*clock, 0.1+1*-clock, 0.1+1*clock >}

This will scale the ripple larger in the x+z while getting
smaller in the y as the clock goes through the cycle.
This would have a tendency to make it spread out and
thin along the way.

Also remember that frequency will control how many ripples
will appear in a given pov unit.

-- 
Ken Tyler

tyl### [at] pacbellnet

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Ken wrote:

> Josh English wrote:
> >
> > I was playing with ripples recentyl, answering another question on this
> > server and now I'm the one that's stuck. When I animated some waves with
> > phase clock and had the clock go from 0 to 1, it looked like the ripples
> > were moving inward, toward the center, instead of away from...
> >
> > Plus, it looks like the ripples extend forever... I would like to see
> > them get smaller and not affect the surface the further from the center
> > the ripples get. I would normally try to get this effect by
> >
> >  ....
> > normal { spherical
> >                 normal_map { [ 0.0 ripples 0 ]
> >                                           [ 1.0 ripples 1 ] } }
> > ....
> >
> > But this doens't work because ripples cannot be used in normal map
> > statements (according to the docs) but it DOES work, unfortunately, even
> > with number_of_waves set to 1, the center of the ripple is not at the
> > origin,but selected randomly...
> >
> > Does anyone have a solution to center the waves on the origin (so they
> > can be accurately moved) or anther way to give them this kind of
> > "extinction" quality so they disappear the further away they get form
> > the center?
> >
> > --
> > Josh English
> > eng### [at] spiritonecom
> > www.spiritone.com/~english
>
> There are some mysteries about both waves and ripples that have
> managed to elude me for a long time as well. While reading
> through your problem though a thought occured to me that might
> help. Since a ripple will by it's nature form aways concentricly
> from the origin like when you throw a stone in the water it's
> waves form outside the impact region. If you want them to start
> to dissapate as they move outward maybe you could add a clock
> value to the scale of the normal. Something like:
>
> normal{
>  ripples 1
>  scale< 0.1+1*clock, 0.1+1*-clock, 0.1+1*clock >}
>
> This will scale the ripple larger in the x+z while getting
> smaller in the y as the clock goes through the cycle.
> This would have a tendency to make it spread out and
> thin along the way.
>
> Also remember that frequency will control how many ripples
> will appear in a given pov unit.
>
> --
> Ken Tyler
>
> tyl### [at] pacbellnet

Looks good and I like the effect, I just need to limit the size to a certain
area.. I've messed around with it some more and got this:

normal { spherical
                normal_map { [ 0.0 bumps 0 ]
                                         [ 0.01 onion 0.05 sine_wave frequency
12 phase -clock*4 ]
                                          [ 0.4 onion .5 sine_wave frequency 4
phase -clock*2 ]
                                          [ 1.0 onion 1 sine_wave frequency 2
phase -clock ] } }

that seems to work at limiting it, so the ripples get smaller and more
frequent as they approach the edge of the ripple effect. I'll post an image
and an animated version of it when tehy're done rendering ; )


--
Josh English
eng### [at] spiritonecom
www.spiritone.com/~english

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