John D. Gwinner wrote:
> This might be a bit of a stretch, plus it's my third image post, but here's
> my "reflecting sphere on a checkered plane". 8-D
> 
> Well, it's not a checkered plane, it's a couple of dirty squares of
> concrete.  And there's a big tank tread sitting on top of the reflective
> sphere.
> 
> This is the output of my Moray plug-in that uses a hack job I did of the
> M.O.P.S system at: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mops/atelier2.htm
> (not my site, I used the basis of this macro in building a "Belts" plugin).
> 
> The Belts Plugin:
> 
> The plug in takes and draws the centeres of a series of Sprockets, Wheels,
> Idlers, and Returns.
> 
> Normally there is one sprocket.  I have to figure out how to calculate the
> sprocket holes for the size of the treads, if you look closly at the
> sprocket you'll see it doesn't line up with the tread.
> 
> The wheels are basically the roadwheels.  I don't have suspension (yet) I
> hand placed the third wheel slightly up.  (couple of mouse clicks)
> 
> The return would be a roadwheel that can 'move' to adjust the track tension
> (not implemented yet).
> 
> The idlers would show 'droop' between the return and the sprocket.  The
> idler logic isn't implemented, so I cheated with a large wheel that is
> tangental between the return and the sprocket.  If you look close you'll
> notice it's not a real 'droop' it's a large circle, but it looks close
> enough.
> 
> The ball bearing that the track is wrapped around is actually another road
> wheel, defined as 'outside' the track and without an include file.
> 
> I have a few things to do before I can post the plug in:
> 
> misc bugs:
> 1) I have a few bugs with the way the controls refresh themselves in the
> plugin
> 2) the width of the track doesn't show right, mostly because it's calculated
> at run time. Basically my version always fills the number of tracks around
> the wheels, so to make it the exact right length it can either stretch each
> link in length, plus width and height, or just length.
> 3) I'd like to calculate the radius of the track 'droop' circule given a
> number of tracks and the spacing between roadwheels and sockets.  The
> drooping extra track would be hanging between the number of idlers.  If no
> idlers, then between the return and the sprocket.
> 4)  Instead of calculating the length to fit the given number of tracks, I
> want to make sure that a sprocket wheel fits the links 'exactly' - which
> will mean cacluating the number of track links to fit the circumference of
> the sprocket wheel.  This would probably end up being a partial track link,
> so I have to implement track 'droop' before I can really do this one, or
> move the return wheel to adjust the total length to be an integer number of
> links.
> 5) Once I have 3 and 4, then I plan on writing a spline following trace()
> macro to calculate the suspension movement based on an average between all
> roadwheels.  I'm having problems with this.
> 6) The icon for 'belts' doesn't look like the nice new Moray icons, I need
> to redraw it
> 7) If I can, I'd like to impelment the roadwheels as an actual Moray item
> that can be drug - as if the Belts object had children.  Right, now, you
> move the wheel picked under 'wheel' by changing the X,Y,Z numbers.  (X is
> ignored currently, the belt has to be in a plane).
> 8) I have a 'width' to the drawn object in Moray, although it doens't line
> up exactly right with the rendered image even though I've implemented the
> vector math in include file pretty much as is.  Something is off.
> 
> The concrete:
> 
> The concrete tiles might eventually become a macro or Moray plugin - they
> are created from Heightfields, not Iso-surfaces, so they generate fairly
> quickly.  The cracks are generated through textures, and any number (or
> none) of cracks can be generated, offset, etc.
> 
> There are faint grooves in the top of the concrete, in addition to the
> casting seams.
> 
> The concrete actually looks better without the stains, but I was
> experimenting with extreme concrete - more or less the inside of a garage,
> not the mars interstate where it is now <G>.
> 
> There are small rocks poking through some of the cracked areas in the
> concrete (but not all the areas - two of the cracks go all the way through).
> This is supposed to look like the concrete aggregate.
> 
> Clearly, there needs to be the 'rest of the tank' to go with the tracks,
> this is a first initial post showing the concrete and the tracks.  I'll post
> screen shots of what the Moray plugin UI looks like to the Moray binaries
> group once I figure out how to do the scene interface for the wheel
> locations.
> 
> Comments?
> 
>         == John ==
> 
> 
> 
> 

tell me you're animating it, please please

shouldn't one of spheres be flattened?

stephen

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