This is a wonderful animation, but a couple of things strike me right away.
    First, the deformation of the cube is great- it shows that "damage" can be
inflicted in the POV environment, which can be used to create very realistic
animations.  Second, when the cube dissolves into its components, they appear to
be "sticky", as they slow down too quickly on the floor.  It might be far more
impressive if they rolled freely and went along like little marbles.
    The lighting is great, the scene is eye catching, and overall I would give
you a 9 on this.

Cheers!

Chip Shults
My robotics, space and CGI web page - http://home.cfl.rr.com/aichip

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"Sir Charles W. Shults III" <aic### [at] cflrrcom> wrote in message
news:3ccddb14$1@news.povray.org...
>     This is a wonderful animation, but a couple of things strike me right
away.

Wow, thanks :-)

>     First, the deformation of the cube is great- it shows that "damage"
can be
> inflicted in the POV environment, which can be used to create very
realistic
> animations.  Second, when the cube dissolves into its components, they
appear to
> be "sticky", as they slow down too quickly on the floor.  It might be far
more
> impressive if they rolled freely and went along like little marbles.

Yes that would be good, I agree. However, as far as the simulation is
concerned, each 'marble' component is actually a fluid particle rather than
a sphere.. they just appear that way due to my blob settings. Indeed, the
whole 'component construction' came about through me messing with the blob
settings... it was originally intended to be a solid mass of 'stuff'.
However, I'm sure that by adept manipulation of the various parameters, the
'marbles' would slide much further.

>     The lighting is great, the scene is eye catching, and overall I would
give
> you a 9 on this.

:-)

> Cheers!

And to you sir.

Andy Cocker

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Neat.

How many particles are involved here? Does it take very long for pov to parse
this data?

MJL

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This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
do that... Until then... *sigh*

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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Tim Nikias <tim### [at] gmxde> wrote:
> This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
> do that... Until then... *sigh*

instead of everybody rolling there own particle systems, how about we club
together and cook up the ultimate be all and end all of pov particle systems
.... just a thought


--
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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"Mark James Lewin" <m_j### [at] yahoocomau> wrote in message
news:3CCE0FF9.E2520518@yahoo.com.au...
> Neat.

Thanks

> How many particles are involved here? Does it take very long for pov to
parse
> this data?

1200 particles... parse time negligible really.. just a second or two.

Andy

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"Rick [Kitty5]" <ric### [at] kitty5com> wrote in message
news:3cce6091$1@news.povray.org...
> Tim Nikias <tim### [at] gmxde> wrote:
> > This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
> > do that... Until then... *sigh*
>
> instead of everybody rolling there own particle systems, how about we club
> together and cook up the ultimate be all and end all of pov particle
systems
> .... just a thought

And a damn good one at that!

Andy

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> instead of everybody rolling there own particle systems, how about we club
> together and cook up the ultimate be all and end all of pov particle
systems
> .... just a thought

Agree! I'd be willing to cooperate, but I'm not that good in math.. Let me
know if I can help anyway.. Even just the sharing of ideas between more
people would probably be good.. I wonder, maybe SDL is not the final
solution, but a step towards coding in C and expanding POV's native
abilities, starting with Pov4.. It could also be important for us to know
how much is going to change in Pov4; if there are already people considering
this. But anyway, it's not too early to start now.. Rune will soon be
releasing his particle system, and we know it's going to be good..

But is there an easy article on the net, that I should read to understand
more of this stuff?

Regards,
Hugo

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Hi all!
 Tim Nikias:
> This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
> do that... Until then... *sigh*
Hmm... how do you start? Leap frog? I'm just curious how this can be done.
Best regards,
Florian

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I don't get that with the "leap frog". Some unknown term to me.

How it could be done? Probably with some sort of
n-body-algorithm, with adaptive time-steps, good
approximation for hundreds of particles, springs...

A lot of stuff, so probably not be coded in pure
POV. *sigh*

Florian Pesth wrote:

> Hi all!
>  Tim Nikias:
> > This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
> > do that... Until then... *sigh*
> Hmm... how do you start? Leap frog? I'm just curious how this can be done.
> Best regards,
> Florian

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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I've got no "easy article" to begin with.

But just think about it. What is there to a particle
program? You need particles, definetely. They move
around, so you'll need to know their positions, keep
track of their speed. Some way of detecting collisions
with other objects (using trace(), probably, or 3D-algorithms
with input from user). You'd probably head for I/O on
a frame by frame basis, so there is a need for Output
and Input from and to disk.

I came up with my version of a particle-system about a
year ago, and its non I/O. Some animations can be found
on my webpage (recently added a new one), but I guess
many people know this already (I mean that I've done
a P.-S., not the animation).

But for mass-particle and such, you can probably find some
PDF files floating in the web, mostly scientific and not
"easy-rating"...

Hugo wrote:

> > instead of everybody rolling there own particle systems, how about we club
> > together and cook up the ultimate be all and end all of pov particle
> systems
> > .... just a thought
>
> Agree! I'd be willing to cooperate, but I'm not that good in math.. Let me
> know if I can help anyway.. Even just the sharing of ideas between more
> people would probably be good.. I wonder, maybe SDL is not the final
> solution, but a step towards coding in C and expanding POV's native
> abilities, starting with Pov4.. It could also be important for us to know
> how much is going to change in Pov4; if there are already people considering
> this. But anyway, it's not too early to start now.. Rune will soon be
> releasing his particle system, and we know it's going to be good..
>
> But is there an easy article on the net, that I should read to understand
> more of this stuff?
>
> Regards,
> Hugo

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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I do like the idea of creating a Particle-Team,
but I also like to do stuff on my own.
It depends on how fast the team is
going to fall apart, and how good we
cooperate.

But we could create something "open-source"
like. I'd be willing to cook up some basic
rules for Macro-Definitions inside the
system (though I should have some help to
make sure that everything is taken care of)
and supply/write some fundamentals.

I'd be happy to host the system and keep
track of an "official" version, e.g. I'll
check additions and look at the algorithms
(as long as they're commented good enough).

If there more than just a bunch (I'd say at least
10), send a reply here and I could go on
and create a page for our OpenSource-PS.

"Rick [Kitty5]" wrote:

> instead of everybody rolling there own particle systems, how about we club
> together and cook up the ultimate be all and end all of pov particle systems
> .... just a thought

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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Hi!
> How it could be done? Probably with some sort of
> n-body-algorithm, with adaptive time-steps, good
> approximation for hundreds of particles, springs...
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Leap frog is just some kind of Runge Kutta
(which is also a numerical solution to differential equations), but it's
faster and it's reversible. I have programmed (as most physic students) a
Runge Kutta of order 4 to simulate planetary movement. Later we have used
same algorithm for gas simulation with 100 particles. But Leap Frog should
be better for this purpose for speed reasons. Any forces should be possible.
>
> A lot of stuff, so probably not be coded in pure
> POV. *sigh*
I would prefer external program in C. Also for speed reasons.
Thanks for reply,
Florian

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> I do like the idea of creating a Particle-Team,
> but I also like to do stuff on my own.

Me too. But I never tried a little team-work in this way, so I'd be willing
to give it a try, without getting very obligated.. Thanks for explaining the
basic principles of a particle system, it sounds logical, but also I'm sure
I'll do so many things wrong, if I just start coding. Probably I'll start
reading more about it, if I can find something simple.

Regards,
Hugo

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Tim Nikias wrote:

> This is cool. Someday, I'll write a particle-programm which can
> do that... Until then... *sigh*

Theoretically, my paricle system can do strings, cloth, and gels, however it
would
be a very slow process because it would not be optimised for this purpose. I can
do this because I have a user defined force within my system. I might give this a

shot just to see...

MJL

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Tim Nikias wrote:

> I do like the idea of creating a Particle-Team,
> but I also like to do stuff on my own.
> It depends on how fast the team is
> going to fall apart, and how good we
> cooperate.

I feel much the same.

> But we could create something "open-source"
> like. I'd be willing to cook up some basic
> rules for Macro-Definitions inside the
> system (though I should have some help to
> make sure that everything is taken care of)
> and supply/write some fundamentals.
>
> I'd be happy to host the system and keep
> track of an "official" version, e.g. I'll
> check additions and look at the algorithms
> (as long as they're commented good enough).
>
> If there more than just a bunch (I'd say at least
> 10), send a reply here and I could go on
> and create a page for our OpenSource-PS.

Sounds like a good idea. Count me in.

MJL

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"Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in message
news:3cce861a$1@news.povray.org...
> But is there an easy article on the net, that I should read to understand
> more of this stuff?
>

http://www.darwin3d.com/gdm1999.htm#gdm0499

has some cool c source code with exe's for this sort of thing

jim

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What gives the residual strains? Do you have plasticity built in or is
it a side effect of your algorithm?


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Peter Popov wrote:
> What gives the residual strains? Do you have plasticity built in or is
> it a side effect of your algorithm?
>

Peter, you haven't been paying attention. :)
He is using a commercial program to generate the coordinates for the
particles and I'm 95% sure he has no clue of the algorithms the program
uses. Neither do I.

--
-Jide

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"Jide" <jid### [at] kotisoonfi> wrote in message
news:3cd058ae@news.povray.org...
> Peter, you haven't been paying attention. :)
> He is using a commercial program to generate the coordinates for the
> particles and I'm 95% sure he has no clue of the algorithms the program
> uses. Neither do I.

Make that 99.999% :-) I haven't a clue.. certainly wasn't expecting the cube
to remain deformed, but pleasantly surprised with the results.

Andy Cocker

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Looks like its just us two at the moment...

Doesn't matter. I've spent a lot of time
into my recent image, the Gerberas, and
I want to cut down on POVing a bit.

Nontheless, I thought a little about this
Open-Source Macro System.
It's not a bad idea to begin with (meaning
the macros), be it Open-Source or not. But
as I'm just about to complete my non I/O
System, I'm not really into writing a new particle
system right away.

But I'll keep it in mind!

Mark James Lewin wrote:

> Tim Nikias wrote:
>
> > I do like the idea of creating a Particle-Team,
> > but I also like to do stuff on my own.
> > It depends on how fast the team is
> > going to fall apart, and how good we
> > cooperate.
>
> I feel much the same.
>
> > But we could create something "open-source"
> > like. I'd be willing to cook up some basic
> > rules for Macro-Definitions inside the
> > system (though I should have some help to
> > make sure that everything is taken care of)
> > and supply/write some fundamentals.
> >
> > I'd be happy to host the system and keep
> > track of an "official" version, e.g. I'll
> > check additions and look at the algorithms
> > (as long as they're commented good enough).
> >
> > If there more than just a bunch (I'd say at least
> > 10), send a reply here and I could go on
> > and create a page for our OpenSource-PS.
>
> Sounds like a good idea. Count me in.
>
> MJL

--
Tim Nikias
Homepage: http://www.digitaltwilight.de/no_lights/index.html
Email: Tim### [at] gmxde

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On Thu, 2 May 2002 00:10:24 +0300, "Jide" <jid### [at] kotisoonfi>
wrote:

>Peter, you haven't been paying attention. :)

Heh, in 640x480 I can't see the name of the poster of the original
message without scrolling right, and something in the post itself
tipped me off to thinking it wasn't another one of Andy's Realflow
experiments but rather a custom made particle system (it's not like
there're not quite a few around :) )


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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