Tom Melly wrote:
> As a general discussion on this, and recalling the
> smoke anim. you posted (or was it on your site?)
> using your particle system (which IIRC had a rather
> dodgy start), is it fundementally easier to simulate
> a still image of smoke by using systems such as your
> own, as opposed to some clever function to shape the
> column?

I'm not sure which of my smoke animations you are referring to. But I
would say though that in all cases it would be quite possible and
probably relatively easy too to create the smoke for an image without
the use of a particle system, by using scripting with splines or similar
instead. However, when using a particle system, it is easier to quickly
change things like how strong the gravity or wind should be or how far
up the smoke should rise.

In my opinion, a particle system can be very useful for images, but has
it real strength in animations.

> The dodgy start to your anim. would imply that, even for still
> images, a particle system has many advantages.

As stated above, I agree.

I'm not very familiar with the word "dodgy" though. Out of curiosity,
what exactly do you mean?

> Also, what exactly was that smoke? A particle system implies
> particles, but it looked more like media. What, roughly, was going on
> in that anim? (the only thing I can think of that makes sense would
> be a merge of particles containing media, but waddaiknow?).

Which smoke animation are you referring to? It could be:
* Smoketrail (smoketrail after a simplistic missile)
* Cigarette Smoke (no cigarette yet, but smoke that could come from one)
* Explosion (camera rotates around a gray box being blown up)
* Blow Up (shaky camera filming realistic building being blown up)

Three entirely different methods were used to create the smoke in these
four animations (the two last were created using the same technique).

Anyway, though term particle in the real world implies something very
small, it doesn't have to literally be that way in a particle simulation
as I understand it. The smoketrail animation was made using several
spheres filled with media. The cigarette smoke animation was made by
connecting the particles with bicubic patches, but I also consider that
a rather unusual approach myself. The explosion animations could have
been made with media if I felt like waiting for weeks, but it was
instead made using textured spheres with the textures facing the camera.
It still takes many hours...

Anything else you'd like to know? I'm always happy to answer questions.
:)

Rune
--
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
Rune's World:  http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated May 20)
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