hey guys.

i'm just playing around with the particle system of Jonathan Rafael Ghiglia.
i know built up a completely new one (far away from being perfect *g*).

here's the problem:
i wanted to create an animation to see how my experiments work. but
everytime i run the code, i get an error. povray complains a certain line in
an auto-generated-include-file where the information about the particles is
stored. but i can't figure out what's wrong with it. the strange thing is,
that the message window shows the line with the error - but this line does
not exist like this.

it's all a bit complicated to explain, so i posted all the code to p.b.s. i
would be glad if anyone could find the time to have a look on it.

thanks in advance,
florian
--
[hp http://www.florianbrucker.de] [icq 149073157]

Post a reply to this message

May it be that loading an include-file in a
macro makes the data local to the macro,
and it is lost when macro finished?

I don't get the point of creating a macro which
actually only includes a file. Its like making
three jumps in circle rather than make a simple
step backwards...

I'm still looking into the code...

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

> hey guys.
>
> i'm just playing around with the particle system of Jonathan Rafael
Ghiglia.
> i know built up a completely new one (far away from being perfect *g*).
>
> here's the problem:
> i wanted to create an animation to see how my experiments work. but
> everytime i run the code, i get an error. povray complains a certain line
in
> an auto-generated-include-file where the information about the particles
is
> stored. but i can't figure out what's wrong with it. the strange thing is,
> that the message window shows the line with the error - but this line does
> not exist like this.
>
> it's all a bit complicated to explain, so i posted all the code to p.b.s.
i
> would be glad if anyone could find the time to have a look on it.
>
> thanks in advance,
> florian
> --
> [hp http://www.florianbrucker.de] [icq 149073157]
>
>
>
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Hm. Your code doesn't check if trace() actually hits
an object. If it does, a normal vector with length != 0
would be returned. It seems to me, as soon as your
particles hit the floor (or should hit it), your system
crashes, cause it tries to use an unspecified value.

I'm not too sure about the mathematics and programming
issues, Thorsten is more into this kinda stuff.

Still. Your system doesn't check if a particle is inside
your environment, or perhaps you get that error when
a particle is too close to the ground plane to get a
rebounce-position.
I think it has something to do with that, but I have not
got the time to actually play with your algorithms properly
to make it work, but thats my suggestion: check if the
normal vector returned with trace() is a unit-length
vector, otherwise, do something with the particle, but
don't base your calculations on trace() in that case.

Hm. Bad writing style. Hope you understand what I mean.

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

> May it be that loading an include-file in a
> macro makes the data local to the macro,
> and it is lost when macro finished?
>
> I don't get the point of creating a macro which
> actually only includes a file. Its like making
> three jumps in circle rather than make a simple
> step backwards...
>
> I'm still looking into the code...
>
> --
> Tim Nikias
> Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
> Email: Tim### [at] gmxde
>
> > hey guys.
> >
> > i'm just playing around with the particle system of Jonathan Rafael
> Ghiglia.
> > i know built up a completely new one (far away from being perfect *g*).
> >
> > here's the problem:
> > i wanted to create an animation to see how my experiments work. but
> > everytime i run the code, i get an error. povray complains a certain
line
> in
> > an auto-generated-include-file where the information about the particles
> is
> > stored. but i can't figure out what's wrong with it. the strange thing
is,
> > that the message window shows the line with the error - but this line
does
> > not exist like this.
> >
> > it's all a bit complicated to explain, so i posted all the code to
p.b.s.
> i
> > would be glad if anyone could find the time to have a look on it.
> >
> > thanks in advance,
> > florian
> > --
> > [hp http://www.florianbrucker.de] [icq 149073157]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Post a reply to this message

hey!

> Your code doesn't check if trace() actually hits
> an object.

well, i think it does: the following lines (line number 178):

<code>
#if
(vlength(trace(Environment,Pos,V,Normal)-Pos)-vlength(V*Seconds_Per_Frame)<P
article_Radius)
</code>
(one line)
checks the distance of the particle to the environment, wether a collision
has been detected or not.

the next line (179)
<code>
#if (vdot(Normal,Normal)>0)
</code>
checks if Normal has the length 0. Cause  vdot(Normal,Normal) =
|Normal|*|Normal|*cos(Angle)

|Normal|*|Normal|. I could have used
the vlength()-function, but i think it's still an old piece my of code (just
forgot to change it)

one moment, i'm rendering again with vlength(Normal)>0... ok, no error. i
thought i had it,
but i changed just some unimportant things with the environment and - a new
error occured.

i don't think that it has something to do with the mathematics or the
system, because i keep
on getting these strange error-messages:

in the state-line down in the pov-window (by the way, er 3.5, WinME), pov
says:
"Parse Error: Expected 'Object or Directive', undeclared Identifier 're'
found instead"

sounds ok. also the message window shows

<messages>
Rendering frame 10 of 99


File: Particles.inc  Line: 238
#declare Lifetime[33] = 8.7907;

#re <----ERROR

Parse Error: Expected 'object or directive', undeclared identifier 're'
found instead


Returned from renderer with error status
</messages>

the preoblem is the "#re". it does not exist. nowhere. not in my code!. and
there is no macro which could
produce it. pov opens the "particles.inc" (the file where the
system-information is stored) and points out, that the
following line (marked with ***) contains the error:

<particles.inc>
#declare Lifetime[77] = 4.28675;
#declare Particles[78][0] = <1.07477,1.80695,1.69491> ;
#declare Particles[78][1] = <0,7.24546,-7.97263> ;
#declare Lifetime[78] = 6.38999;
#declare Particles[79][0] = <-1.14604,2.50891,1.26264> ;  ***
#declare Particles[79][1] = <0,-9.89509,-1.93041> ;
#declare Lifetime[79] = 4.31252;
#declare Particles[80][0] = <0.504877,1.72762,1.83567> ;
#declare Particles[80][1] = <0,7.41347,-7.90948> ;
#declare Lifetime[80] = 7.59661;
</particles.inc>

but this line is in no way different from all the other lines in that file,
it's ok and - has nothing to do with "#re". i can't find out where pov gets
this "#re" from.

you said you couldn't make my file work. do you get an error like this too,
or is there something else?

thanks for your help,
florian

Post a reply to this message

hey guys!

well, what should i say? i just made some copy & paste, saved with a
different filename, and some more minor changes and - no more errors.
strange.

well, thanks for your help,
florian

Post a reply to this message

Well, thats a good thing, isn't it?

I suspect that some of your "minor" changes had
to do with the writing to disk or reading, but I'm
not too sure about that.

Well, nontheless, when you're getting satisfied
with your achievements, post some animations!

Regards,

Tim

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde


> hey guys!
>
> well, what should i say? i just made some copy & paste, saved with a
> different filename, and some more minor changes and - no more errors.
> strange.
>
> well, thanks for your help,
> florian
>
>

Post a reply to this message