"Mark Hanford" <ren### [at] blueyondercouk> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3c97414f@news.povray.org...
> Here we go, yet another particle system...
Hi,

> 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 :)
For me the Animation looks good so far. I found it difficult to find a
constellation in which the particles interact nicely for a long period
without catapulting each other lightyears away  :)

> 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.
I use a quite similar approach, i compute the weighted average of the
positions of all particles where the weight of its position is based on
its mass so light particles don't alter the result much whereas heavy ones
make a bigger difference.
Then i compute the average distance of each body to this mass-center, again
weighted with mass. I use this value to scale the camera distance from the
mass-center, so when the bodies on average double their distance to the center
the cam doubles its distance, too. This has just the drawback that if the
particles spread too much, the cam will zoom so far away that each body is
relatively so small that it will vanish sooner or later. :/
I'll post one of my animations now, where i use that approach, too.

> 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?
I think you thought of tha same idea as i did.

> 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

Greetz,
Thies Heidecke

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