Hi there!

Well, I am programming a particle system for POV-Ray and have designed
in a fashion which makes
almost anything customizable (when I'm speaking of design, I mean
algorithms, it's text-based, like POV).

Now, what I was wondering:
What exactly should a particle system be able to handle? Not only do I
want to see if I can cover the
demands by checking if the macros can supply the needed basis for people
to program the algorithms using
the macros, but also, I think it would be great if one could have sort
of a check-list to see, what one should
think about to create an awesome particle system.
Hope you get the idea...

Well, I'll begin with something simple:
Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
definable areas, in which the particles are born.

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Love to see some of this work. Happy to beta test if needed! Have a look at
the features of Illusion from Coolfun:
http://www.coolfun.com/illusion/index.htm

You can download the manual and see all the parameters they offer.
D..

"Tim Nikias" <Tim### [at] gmxde> wrote in message
news:3C0ADB1F.66DD2EB7@gmx.de...
> Hi there!
>
> Well, I am programming a particle system for POV-Ray and have designed
> in a fashion which makes
> almost anything customizable (when I'm speaking of design, I mean
> algorithms, it's text-based, like POV).
>
> Now, what I was wondering:
> What exactly should a particle system be able to handle? Not only do I
> want to see if I can cover the
> demands by checking if the macros can supply the needed basis for people
> to program the algorithms using
> the macros, but also, I think it would be great if one could have sort
> of a check-list to see, what one should
> think about to create an awesome particle system.
> Hope you get the idea...
>
> Well, I'll begin with something simple:
> Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
> definable areas, in which the particles are born.
>

Post a reply to this message

Yeah, well, that's something someone already wrote. Your reply is of value, of
course, but my intent was to have the community speak up and tell, what
sort of effects they can come up with and what they'd expect and like to have.

Nontheless, I'm downloading right now... ;)

So, another idea would be force-fields, which affect particles found within
them, like swirling them around (to create twisters or such) or just slowing
them down.

Post a reply to this message

> Well, I'll begin with something simple:
> Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
> definable areas, in which the particles are born.

Similarly, a defined area in which particles die, but it should be optional.
It should also support collision detection with objects and between
particles, and/or the ability for particles to repel or pull each other as a
function of their distance.

- Slime
[ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
[ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]

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I'd really like to see the ability to "particalize" a preexisting bitmap.
Hope you can consider that as an option.
D.

"Slime" <noo### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:3c0b12ec$1@news.povray.org...
> > Well, I'll begin with something simple:
> > Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
> > definable areas, in which the particles are born.
>
> Similarly, a defined area in which particles die, but it should be
optional.
> It should also support collision detection with objects and between
> particles, and/or the ability for particles to repel or pull each other as
a
> function of their distance.
>
> - Slime
> [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
> [ http://www.slimeland.com/images/ ]
>
>

Post a reply to this message

> Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
> definable areas, in which the particles are born.

Destroyer : particles are removed on contact

environmental modifiers. things like gravity and wind

object modifiers. attractor and repulse scene objects (could replace
gravity)

intersection & collision - particle to particle, and particle to object
--

Rick

Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037

PGP Public Key
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA

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On Mon, 03 Dec 2001 02:53:35 +0100, Tim Nikias <Tim### [at] gmxde>
wrote:

>Hi there!
>
>Well, I am programming a particle system for POV-Ray and have designed
>in a fashion which makes
>almost anything customizable (when I'm speaking of design, I mean
>algorithms, it's text-based, like POV).
>
>Now, what I was wondering:
>What exactly should a particle system be able to handle? Not only do I
>want to see if I can cover the
>demands by checking if the macros can supply the needed basis for people
>to program the algorithms using
>the macros, but also, I think it would be great if one could have sort
>of a check-list to see, what one should
>think about to create an awesome particle system.
>Hope you get the idea...
>
>Well, I'll begin with something simple:
>Particle-Systems should definitely have some sort of Emitter, e.g.
>definable areas, in which the particles are born.
>

Mhm, here's a good feature list:

Emitters:
 spherical, cone and object emitter (object emitter=particles are on
the surface of and object and have initial speed=normal*factor)
 controls for: initial speed, accelleration, position, speed
randomness, accell rondomness, position randomness, die age, die age
randomness, initial color, initial color randomness, particle die mode
(hit-die,age-die,speed-die).

Particles:
 hit detection-rebound, color control: speed based, age based,
accelleration based (mhm there should be a speed, age etc variable for
every particle, and then I should be able to attach those variables to
color channels or to any other value... like phong highlight etc...)
 ability to attach a generic object to every particle (blob, sphere,
light, point etc) with or without orientation (mhm you can calc object
oriet. by using particle speed vector or by adding a normal vector to
particles... this would allow spinning objects)
 point and line particles

Forces:
 normal (linear), vortex, bend, attractor

Post a reply to this message

> Particles:

>  ability to attach a generic object to every particle (blob, sphere,
> light, point etc)

make that ability to attach any pov object to a particle, quick and dirty
collisions etc could be done using an objects bounding box


--

Rick

Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037

PGP Public Key
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA

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On Tue, 4 Dec 2001 13:29:49 -0000, "Rick [Kitty5]" <ric### [at] kitty5com>
wrote:

>> Particles:
>
>>  ability to attach a generic object to every particle (blob, sphere,
>> light, point etc)
>
>make that ability to attach any pov object to a particle, quick and dirty
>collisions etc could be done using an objects bounding box

Mhm, I think it's really important to have accurate collisions with
meshes... I think that this can not be done with boundingboxes... For
collisions I think that you can assume that particles are spheres (or
points if It's too slow to do spheres), not check object->mesh
collision as this would be really impossible
>
>--
>
>Rick
>
>Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
>POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
>TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037
>
>PGP Public Key
>http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA
>
>

Post a reply to this message

> >>  ability to attach a generic object to every particle (blob, sphere,
> >> light, point etc)
> >
> >make that ability to attach any pov object to a particle, quick and dirty
> >collisions etc could be done using an objects bounding box
>
> Mhm, I think it's really important to have accurate collisions with
> meshes... I think that this can not be done with boundingboxes... For
> collisions I think that you can assume that particles are spheres (or
> points if It's too slow to do spheres), not check object->mesh
> collision as this would be really impossible

then have 2 options - accurate + quick and dirty


--

Rick

Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037

PGP Public Key
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA

Post a reply to this message