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

I think you should make your particles larger for starters :)

divx5? almost ended up with gator installed, thanks.


--

Rick

Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037

PGP Public Key
http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA

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> I think you should make your particles larger for starters :)
>
> divx5? almost ended up with gator installed, thanks.
Could you please not post DivX5-animations.  DivX5 gives problems here with
DivX4-movies.

I'd love to see your animation, but there is NO WAY I'm going to install DivX5!

cu!
--
camera{location-z*3}#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*(C/50)#end#macro L(b,e,k,l)#local C=0
;#while(C<50)sphere{G(b,e),.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1
;#end#end L(y-x,y,x,x+y)L(y,-x-y,x+y,y)L(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)L(-y,y,y+z,x+y)L(0,x+y,
<.5,1,.5>,x)L(0,x-y,<.5,1,.5>,x)               // ZK http://www.povplace.be.tf

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> I'd love to see your animation, but there is NO WAY I'm going to install
DivX5!

Me neither. I have DivX and it started out so good as open source, but
now....


Regards,
Hugo

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So download the option without all that crap...

--

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


"Rick [Kitty5]" <ric### [at] kitty5com> wrote in message
news:3c974fbe$1@news.povray.org...
> I think you should make your particles larger for starters :)
>
> divx5? almost ended up with gator installed, thanks.
>
>
> --
>
> Rick
>
> Kitty5 WebDesign - http://Kitty5.com
> POV-Ray News & Resources - http://Povray.co.uk
> TEL : +44 (01270) 501101 - FAX : +44 (01270) 251105 - ICQ : 15776037
>
> PGP Public Key
> http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x231E1CEA
>
>

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> Could you please not post DivX5-animations.  DivX5 gives problems here with
> DivX4-movies.
>
> I'd love to see your animation, but there is NO WAY I'm going to install
DivX5!
hmmm, never mind... Either this is a DivX4-animation, or DivX4 can play
DivX5-movies :)

Nice animation!

cu!
--
camera{location-z*3}#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*(C/50)#end#macro L(b,e,k,l)#local C=0
;#while(C<50)sphere{G(b,e),.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1
;#end#end L(y-x,y,x,x+y)L(y,-x-y,x+y,y)L(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)L(-y,y,y+z,x+y)L(0,x+y,
<.5,1,.5>,x)L(0,x-y,<.5,1,.5>,x)               // ZK http://www.povplace.be.tf

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> hmmm, never mind... Either this is a DivX4-animation, or DivX4 can play
> DivX5-movies :)

It can't, I have 4.11 so you must have Divx5 already without knowing it.

> So download the option without all that crap...

The non-pro version is probably not better than v4 and maybe worse, at least
they say it lacks some important encoding features..

Regards,
Hugo

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> > hmmm, never mind... Either this is a DivX4-animation, or DivX4 can play
> > DivX5-movies :)
> It can't, I have 4.11 so you must have Divx5 already without knowing it.
nope, 4.02 here :)
Weird :)

cu!
--
camera{location-z*3}#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*(C/50)#end#macro L(b,e,k,l)#local C=0
;#while(C<50)sphere{G(b,e),.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1
;#end#end L(y-x,y,x,x+y)L(y,-x-y,x+y,y)L(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)L(-y,y,y+z,x+y)L(0,x+y,
<.5,1,.5>,x)L(0,x-y,<.5,1,.5>,x)               // ZK http://www.povplace.be.tf

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"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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