CompuServe Messages

Sanford, I am not a programmer, and I don't know if you are either, but it seems to me that the only reason there aren't particle systems for spline models is because no one has actually expended the effort to create one. I don't know about the beginnings of computer animation, but I would assume that it was all polygons in the beginning. And people who wrote effects for early animation started by writing stuff for polygon models. The demand for the future will be curve-based modeling, and someone or some group will find a way to do it. One way that occurs to me to make a spline-based sphere explode would be to write an algorithm that calculates the surface, uses some sort of fractal mathematics to break the surface up into randomly shaped patches, and then use something like skinning, only in a reverse fashion, to disconnect each patch to become a separate particle to be animated. Have you ever wondered what type of air travel we would have today if there never evolved any animal, bird, or insect that had wings and could fly? No one would have seen a bird and admired the way it could soar and glide and wished or wondered that there was a way for man to do it also. But they would have seen leaves blow in the wind, or kicked a dandelion and watched a summer breeze carry each piece up, and away. There is a reason why programming languages are called languages. Look at the English language. Extremely versatile, you can use to make almost any thought understood by almost anyone. It has certain limitations just like programming languages do. I look at Turbo C++ as a rather young, growing, language that has not been explored fully. But it will be. I'm pretty sure that when someone was wishing for a curve-based modeler years ago, that the polygon experts were the first to say impossible. Maybe it isn't a good idea to ask the polygon effects creators to create spline-based effects. Their way of thinking may be too closed to trying something that they already think is impossible. I have a friend who works for Precision Cast Parts, and a while back he was telling me about a situation where some people wanted to see if an automobile could be designed that could meet certain specs such as 100 mpg, and some other things I don't remember. The point is, is that naturally went straight to the automobile designers who said "impossible". That was expected. Then they went to a different group of engineers with the same challenge. No, they didn't know a thing about automobile design, but they went for it. And succeded. Who were these engineers? Believe it or not, they were hydraulics experts. They even designed a set of brakes that stored inertia as kinetic energy that was released after a stop starting the car moving at a reasonable without using the gas pedal at all. I'm no expert, but I believe that spline-based effects are certainly possible. All it is going to take is an individual or group of dedicated programmers to make it a reality. Michael S. Flynn