your-dentist

13th February 2004 10:57 UTC

Single Superscope Preset: Überflow
Refraction turned out to be a lot tougher than expected ,so I had to start at the lowest level and got stuck soon.
So I turned to one of my unfinished projects, the Überscope http://www.deviantart.com/view/4931276/.
Now here's the result, I wrote a total new system for the grid (based on some codesniffing in UnConeD's Seismogrid) and made it much easier to handle, you can now access the X- and the Y-coordinates of every single point on the grid. That way it is possible to make very flexible 3d-grid-superscope-objects now (think of a cloth that falls physically correct - might be possible with huge efforts). All I want you to do, is to tell me how you like it, give tips on improving, or even making another gridbased object out of it and post it here. Please also read the comment in the preset for more information.
Well, that's what to be had said before, now here's the link:
http://collective.valve-erc.com/data.../uberstuff.zip (made on winamp5.1)
The torus is just for fun. Made it in 5 minutes, that's why i didn't fix the deformation.

Jaak

13th February 2004 22:24 UTC

yes nice coding bla bla bla blaaa....


but its so stupid to do same thing with one ssc and f_cking your brains out if you can do the same thing with 2 superscopes without any problems... really pointless in my mind

anubis2003

13th February 2004 22:49 UTC

The seismogrid like thing is okay - but it's not too original.

Also, the torus - the colors - there's a straight line where the color doesn't smoothly change - use a coloring algorithm that is mirrored - so the point where the end meets the beginning still is smooth

your-dentist

16th February 2004 10:24 UTC

actually this was just an example for the grid system.
though no one really seems to be interrested in this here is one more cool thing:
a 3x3 patchgrid,
grab it

Jaak

16th February 2004 12:43 UTC

bezier patch is like sooo 1 year ago.... imo bezier is much much easyer and smaller than your method... just google for it, now you can do bezier batch with any control points, we have loops and unlimited number of varables one can use

if you REALLY want i can use my sucky english and "l33t" math skill to explain how to do the bezier in avs very easily

your-dentist

16th February 2004 13:53 UTC

Originally posted by Jaak
if you REALLY want i can use my sucky english and "l33t" math skill to explain how to do the bezier in avs very easily

Jaak

16th February 2004 15:19 UTC

oh well, ill try:

first thing you need to do, is to solve (a+b)***711;(n-1) wile n is the number of control points, so if you want 3 control points then you get:

a***711;2+2*a*b+b***711;2 ,if 5 then:
a***711;4 + 4*a***711;3*b + 6*a***711;2*b***711;2 + 4*b***711;3*a + b***711;4

now you got to multiply each.. err... step, or whatever its called with coordinate of each control point, so with 3 control points you get:

x=x1*a***711;2+x2*2*a*b+x3*b***711;2;
y=y1*a***711;2+y2*2*a*b+y3*b***711;2;

where (x1,y1),(x2,y2) and (x3,y3) are control points of the line
only yhing you have to do now is:

a=1-i;
b=i;
x=x1*a***711;2+x2*2*a*b+x3*b***711;2;
y=y1*a***711;2+y2*2*a*b+y3*b***711;2;

thats how the bezier curves work in 2d for avs, for patch is little more complicated, and i really think i do not have skill to explain this one, so ill just post a preset.
preset is done in time we didnt have loops and megabuffers, so you can make it with much less code, its 5x5 point bezier patch, UCD had 4x4 one allready, so thought to do the 5x5...

as a hint i can say, think about this line of code:
p6=p1*sqr(1-hy)*sqr(1-hy) + p2*4*sqr(1-hy)*(1-hy)*hy + p3*6*sqr(1-hy)*sqr(hy) + p4*4*sqr(hy)*hy*(1-hy) + p5*sqr(hy)*sqr(hy);
http://www.acko.net/dumpx/jaak/5x5%20(2).zip

[edit: Stretch fix
-- UnConeD]

Shock Value

17th February 2004 22:52 UTC

That bezier patch preset is nice. Add more effects to make it more aesthetic and more aggressive music visualization and you've got a winner.

your-dentist

18th February 2004 10:55 UTC

thanks for your help, but I've already found a tut on bezier stuff on google. I still have problems with bezier patches.
well, for a short look here are my presets:
cubic bezier curve
bezierpatch (not working)
I'll look at the preset, but I'm busy right now.

[edit]btw: what are gmegabuff and megabuff good for (they store something to a one million buffer, but what does that mean?)

UIUC85

18th February 2004 15:58 UTC

they are arrays. gmegabuff holds global vars and megabuff holds normal vars

your-dentist

23rd February 2004 10:32 UTC

Whooho! I love megabuf!
Just one more thing!
A 9x9 beziersurface!
The comment is not complete, so thanks to Jaak!

jheriko

26th February 2004 02:45 UTC

That Bezier patch looks pretty cool. The preset and colours are a bit ugly though.. the starfield serves no purpose either. Nice tech.. but the looks need some work.

Using lots of control points for a Bezier sounds good.. but its quite expensive for a huge patch (like a landscape) so a good idea is to tile lots of smaller ones. Doing this with bicubics is possible but I don't know how to do it myself. :/

your-dentist

27th February 2004 18:07 UTC

well, this 9x9 patch thingy was just a test for the AVS. since it's so slow and I doupt that I can increase the speed with optimization I wont make a serious preset out of it.

using several bicubic isn't tough at all, if you know the basics for beziercurves and patches, you can simply combine them.
(me is one of those who'd try to put 9 bicubics or even more into one single superscope *hrhr*)
the biggest problem with a landscape is that you would have to use voxels to make it look real.(like UnConeDs mission to mars) and i think that a more or less complex combination of sine function can form a realistic landscape with way less loss of speed.
i thought of some kind of dove-wings-bezierpatch-preset or a cloth as realistic as possible.

your-dentist

2nd March 2004 08:47 UTC

err!
what about bezier tentacles.
ultra high definition tentacles not only three or four points.
have a look.

UIUC85

2nd March 2004 09:18 UTC

Do you know any good sites about patches and bezier curves? Those are a few subjects I could use a few good sources on.

your-dentist

2nd March 2004 12:18 UTC

try this one:
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2...ing/bezier.pdf
i just googled for bezier curves when i wanted to learn the formula. this pdf explained it very good, to my mind