CompuServe Thread

<I DL'ed your MEGA_flc 1GA29 and it is way cool. I recommend that people take the time to DL it if possible – based on your past work I'm sure that they are interested. You continue to amaze us!> Thanks Dennis! <an excellent demonstration of the outer limits of AniPro> Not even close to the limits! I just started to create complete animations with POCO about two months ago. The animations I uploaded until then did not require POCO. My use of POCO was only for simple tasks, like advancing to the next cel frame, or entering a path with the keyboard, etc. I wanted to upload animations that anyone could do with AniPro. I am done with that phase. Tune in a year from now! <Just one question – when will "your particle system" be available to the rest of us unworthy amateurs???> I am still optimizing the code, and adding features (I am reading my first C book, and can see many ways to improve the code). But, I don't mind sending the program to anyone now, followed by the finished version later. You can have a lot of fun with it as it is! Send $15.00 to the address below, AND notify me by E-mail. I'll E-mail the program (5K bytes zipped) within 24 hrs from the time you notify me (this offer is valid during August of 1994): Ed Kellerman 1047 Schuyler Dr. Endicott, NY 13760 I'll send the program ready to generate a very interesting animation: the emergence of a spiral galaxy from the near-collision of a disk galaxy with another mass. This simulation renders in about two minutes on my 486-66. Two minutes to simulate events taking place over two billion years! Running the program is easy. Set the screen resolution to 320×200. Go to the POCO drop-down menu, select "Program/Load," double-click on the file, then "Program/Run." That's it! The resulting galaxy is very similar to the Whirlpool nebula in the constellation Canes Venatici, a galaxy with two long arms that originate on opposite sides. The Whirlpool nebula is still linked by a "bridge" to a nearby galaxy, just like you'll see in the middle of the animation. But, the animation goes beyond that stage. If in a hundred million years you find that the prediction is wrong, I'll refund your money<g>. After that, you'll want to run your own simulations. Try to replicate the gaps in Saturn's rings, for example. To modify parameters simply use "Program/Edit." The parameters appear at the beginning of the file. For example, the first four parameters you'll see are: mass_1_x_pos = 24 , mass_1_y_pos = 100 , mass_1_x_vel = 0.4 , mass_1_y_vel = -0.25 , If a set of parameters results in an animation you'd like to save, you may not need to save the one meg-FLC file. Just use "Program/Save as" and save the 20K program that can recreate the FLC any time. On my 486-86 it takes a minute or two to recreate a 150-frame animation with 40 particles, using opaque ink. In addition, in those simple cases, the rendering speed is close to the speed you'd play the flic. Often you'll just watch the flic rendering and see that you need to adjust the parameters, without ever needing to play the flic! When you like what you see, you would increase the number of particles, the number of frames, etc., and then you'll have to wait longer (1GA29 took about 8 hrs). Ed K