My first proper animation from tinkering with BPP, adapted from the demo tower
script. Textured using the pre/post_sdl properties, and the master pov scene
just needed an override camera and some simple embellishment.

210 frames, simulation in about 5 minutes, rendering in about 15 minutes.

The ball is 50x heavier than a brick :)

Bill

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Attachments:
Download 'tower1.mp4.mpg' (3716 KB)

Impressive.

What I wonder at is what happens to the left side of the bricks stack? 
When the ball hits, it should crumble fractionally earlier than the 
right side, maybe bringing the stack down towards the left. Also, you do 
not see the bricks having been displaced there while the stack crumbles. 
Perhaps a trick of the eyes however. Would be worthwhile to see this in 
slow motion (and with semi-transparent bricks).

Thomas

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On 11/06/2013 8:35 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Impressive.
>
> What I wonder at is what happens to the left side of the bricks stack?
> When the ball hits, it should crumble fractionally earlier than the
> right side, maybe bringing the stack down towards the left. Also, you do
> not see the bricks having been displaced there while the stack crumbles.
> Perhaps a trick of the eyes however. Would be worthwhile to see this in
> slow motion (and with semi-transparent bricks).
>

Save the file, open it in Windows Media Player. Then Right click > 
Enhancements > Play speed settings.

You will see what happen better in slow motion.

Nice one Bill. You have a history of destroying things. IIRC. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 06/10/2013 07:09 PM, Bill Pragnell wrote:
>
> 210 frames, simulation in about 5 minutes, rendering in about 15 minutes.
>
> The ball is 50x heavier than a brick :)
>
> Bill
>
Looks cool. I recall doing this with building blocks & dominoes when I 
was a kid. Great fun.

Does BPP write 210 sets of positions/transforms which are then rendered 
by frame in povray? Or, is BPP set up to simulate/render per frame?

Suppose I am wondering if one can one peak ahead by rendering select 
frames after a total simulation completes. Also, whether it is possible 
to look at a what happens to a few items of the whole simulation in 
isolation by rendering just those items.

Lastly, we are now of course in anticipation of a movie staring the 
"Archimedean Solids".

Bill P.

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> What I wonder at is what happens to the left side of the bricks stack?
> When the ball hits, it should crumble fractionally earlier than the
> right side, maybe bringing the stack down towards the left.

It looks reasonable to my eyes. More bricks are knocked out on the right side,
so it falls slightly that way and into the gap left by the ball.

> Would be worthwhile to see this in
> slow motion (and with semi-transparent bricks).

I want to try some slow motion and camera movement next, so I might be able to
oblige. Not sure about transparency though, it might end up looking too busy to
see what's going on. I could use some radiosity to illuminate the shadowed
areas, that might make it a little clearer.

Bill

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Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> Nice one Bill. You have a history of destroying things. IIRC. ;-)

You have a good memory. Perhaps I should try revisiting the knots in BPP!

Bill

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William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Does BPP write 210 sets of positions/transforms which are then rendered
> by frame in povray? Or, is BPP set up to simulate/render per frame?

It writes a set of .inc files containing the geometry transformed using matrix {
}. You can optionally specify POV-Ray SDL in the lua code to surround the matrix
transform. Also exported is a .pov file which does an #include based on the
clock variable, and an .ini file to set up the animation loop.

> Suppose I am wondering if one can one peak ahead by rendering select
> frames after a total simulation completes.

You can, by simply #including the frame you want to see and turning off the
animation. This is how I set up the camera and environment in the master .pov
file before rendering the whole animation.

> Also, whether it is possible
> to look at a what happens to a few items of the whole simulation in
> isolation by rendering just those items.

I'm not sure. Perhaps if you used the in-line SDL feature to #declare all the
geometry items into an array, then the #include would insert nothing into the
scene and you could pick out any subset of items you wanted. I should try this,
it sounds like it might be quite powerful.

> Lastly, we are now of course in anticipation of a movie staring the
> "Archimedean Solids".

Haha, good idea!

> Bill P.
The other Bill P

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Aaah... I see that the ball makes a glancing strike instead of a head on 
one.

I am satisfied now ;-)

Thomas

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On 11/06/2013 12:19 PM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 11-6-2013 10:12, Stephen wrote:
>> Save the file, open it in Windows Media Player. Then Right click >
>> Enhancements > Play speed settings.
>>
>> You will see what happen better in slow motion.
>
> Yeah... I am getting even more puzzled... my eyes tell me there is much
> less destruction on the left...
>

I don't see the problem, it looks natural to me.

Maybe a view from the top or at right angles to the path of the ball?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 11/06/2013 11:36 AM, Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
>> Nice one Bill. You have a history of destroying things. IIRC. ;-)
>
> You have a good memory.

It was pretty spectacular. Easy to remember. :-)

Perhaps I should try revisiting the knots in BPP!
>

Go on, go on, go on. As Mrs Doyle from Fr. Ted would say.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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