Here we go, yet another particle system...

I just couldn't resist the urge to have a go at one of these myself.  So far
it's quite fun, although the Creator of the Original might not agree with
some of my physical rules :)

One question I have is regarding camera controlls in these "outer-space"
particle systems;

What do you do to keep the action in the camera's view?  The method I used
for this animation was to target the camera on the average position of all
the particles, however if they move Z a lot, I end up looking at a lot of
nothing and a little white spot in the middle of the screen.
I have also tried targeting a specific particle (maybe a heavy one) but if
this one somehow gets escape velocity, I end up watching a spot on the
screen again.

As I was typing this message, I thought of maybe using the first method, and
then placing the camera at some -Z distance to that target?  Does that sound
reasonable?

Damn, that ended up waffling a bit much, sorry...

btw. has anyone else heard the song "Particle Man" by "They Might Be
Giants" - seems fitting somehow ;)

Mark Hanford
http://www.mrhanford.com/povray

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Download '6Particles.avi.dat' (238 KB)