Controlling Particles

[iiceman]

@jerome, right, I saw that you made it with your ribbon mesh. I already check it out but I was still not sure that I understood The main thing that confused me was that you use 2 paths. The crazy thing about the Möbius Stripe is that it is actually a surface with only one edge, right? So if I want to use particles that move like they float on such a Möbius Stripe, do I need those 2 functions? or even multiple particle emitters (so that it is not just one line but like an actual 2D twisted surface)? Maybe I just lack the imagination and I figure it out when I try it

 

@Temechon, sure, a thread for each question is fine (maybe one for all physics related questions?). I think I start with the first one as soon as I get the time tonight. And yeah, might be one or two physics questions (actually I got 3 on my mind so far ), I would like to stick with Oimo, works pretty well for me so far.

[jerome]

No, you don't need two paths.

Each path here is one edge of the ribbon

 

You could so have :

new BABYLON.Vector3( (1 + t * Math.cos(v/2) / 2) * Math.cos(v), (1 + t * Math.cos(v/2) / 2) * Math.sin(v) , t * Math.sin(v/2) / 2 );

making var t vary from -1 to 1 to cover the whole width

 

maybe something like this (if you want, say, 20 vertices on the width, not tested) :

for (var i = 0; i <= 60; i++) {  var v = 2.0 * Math.PI * i / 60;  for(var t = -1; t <= 1; t += 0.1) {   // store your vertices as you want here with the formula above  }}

[iiceman]

I have no clue what I am doing here but it looks fun

 

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#1

[jerome]

Nice

You did a moebius ribbon !!!

 

Change your line 32 as your particles die to fast :

        ps.maxLifeTime = 8;

then run, zoom, rotate...

you'll see your moebius ribbon in action

[iiceman]

yeah... I am getting closer to the strip now, too: http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#2 (epileptic warning!)

 

maybe I could use something else than the random value...

 

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#3

EDIT: http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#4

 

... didnt really work out

[jerome]

very nice effect !

 

depends on what you exactly wanted to get ...

[iiceman]

Well, actually I didn't really want to achieve anything in particular. Just trying out to see whats possible and how to abuse the particle system. But I think its a bit disturbing that they bounce that randomly, I would like them to form a strip but with fixed positions, like in the latest playground when its still building up. The problem is that as soon as all particles are emitted they start bouncing randomly... I am not sure why though.

[jerome]

the bouncing effect is due to very short life time

change it to something longer, you'll see them at fixed position ... until they die

        ps.minLifeTime = 60;        ps.maxLifeTime = 60;

maybe you simply don't want mortal particles ?

[iiceman]

Hmm.. good point... maybe I really don't want them to die... http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#5

 

But that here is okay, too: http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#6 ... they die but appear in the same spot again... sooo, I don't care if they live or die 

 

New goal.. I want them to move/float like the the strip is rotating...seems like they can't die, otherwise it gets stuck:

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#7 (get stuck after all particles are initiated)

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#8 (works well and looks cool)

[jerome]

superb !

[GameMonetize]

Astonishing!

[iiceman]

By the way, I did the double helix again + rotation. Cools kinda cool, too. It's really fun playing around with particles

 

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#15HSI4#1

[jerome]

awsome !

[jerome]

hey iiceman

here is your moebius ribbon particle system again : http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2KOEWJ#9

I just commented some useless lines of code to get the same final result.

 

this might be insignifiant but I ran it on my old laptop computer and it improved the frame rate from 45 fps to 52 fps

=> +15% just by deleting some code ;-)

 

worth it !

[iiceman]

Nice! I didn't really think about removing the default code, but seems like it's really note needed here