CompuServe Messages

<<Would you possibly have time to write and post David "cells-R-us" Gould's Top Ten tips for shaping splatable stuff?>> Basically the tools for creating models and animations are designed principally to create objects with hard edges so you have to approach it with more of an eye for aesthetics than for accuracy. I think that the greatest tool yet has been Blobs which produce clean "membranes" between objects that would otherwise be too difficult to create and animate. Though for many objects I used 2D Shaper and the Lofter. For instance the chromosomes themselves can be created as a smooth object and then using various bump and texture maps produce the desired effect. It all depends on what your purposes are. For the cell mitosis animation basic spherical shapes perturbed with displace using a fractal image produces enough randomness to appear natural. The materials used are typically random also depending on what you are hoping to achieve. We had a meeting with a leading expert in cytology and he said that they don't truely know what colour each particular component in a cell is, though we can find great references to the bump and texture of these components. So the colour and pattern is an aesthetic choice, though we have chosen colours that are normally used to stain the various components of the cell when seen under a microscope. The movement of such objects is more difficult since they must appear as though they are alive. This includes sending waves through them and having them pulsing. What exactly are you looking for? <<Pretty please?>> With a cherry on top? David "Splat!" Gould