Forums > Technical Discussion > Poi simulation

Posted: 17 years ago
The Unit Circle Hybrids video were created with

3DS MAX 2009 from Autodesk

and Truespace 7.6 as may better future choice.

---------------------

Or PM AlienJon for more detailed info.

happy coding,

:R

POI THEO(R)IST

Posted: 17 years ago
i asked jon about this recently, he reccomended truespace a good solution as its meant to be more simple to use, still quite high powered, and free..

i havent yet gotten my head around it though.. maybe sooner or later

"you know there are no trophys for doing silly things in real life yeah pete?" said ant "you wont get a 'listened to ride of the valkyries all the way to vietnam' trophy"

*proud owner of the very cute fire_spinning_angel, birgit and neon shaolin*

Posted: 17 years ago
Hey Geoff, could you re-enter the links to the vids you like?
Sorry I can;t give you any technical help but they sound like something I'd like to watch

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 17 years ago
I was thinking the same thing, there is a poi video I saw, and some animation program was used to simulate a poi, and it traveled with the poi, so you could see it's pattern.

If anyone knows where this video is, or knows what program is used, it might also be 3DS MAX 2009 from Autodesk, not sure. But any information would help.

May the Centrifugal Force be with you.

::Ignorance Is Bliss

Posted: 17 years ago
the videos geoff has tried to link to were indeed made in 3ds max from autodesk,

there are quite a few little videos that jon has put up, his youtube account can be found here, with all the relevant links: https://www.youtube.com/user/AlienJon

"you know there are no trophys for doing silly things in real life yeah pete?" said ant "you wont get a 'listened to ride of the valkyries all the way to vietnam' trophy"

*proud owner of the very cute fire_spinning_angel, birgit and neon shaolin*

Posted: 17 years ago
https://au.youtube.com/profile?user=AlienJon&view=videos

Is this what you're talking about?

Posted: 17 years ago
ive just been playing with truespace7.6 for an hour or so, and have gotten a decent understanding of the basics of animation, it feels a lot like what i can remember of making things in flash.

it does a lot of the work for you, which is quite nice, and it is quite smooth and flowy in its motions, not too machine like, which is a great quality.

tomorow, or maybe later tonight, ill start work on trying to make a set of virtual poi.. wish me luck

"you know there are no trophys for doing silly things in real life yeah pete?" said ant "you wont get a 'listened to ride of the valkyries all the way to vietnam' trophy"

*proud owner of the very cute fire_spinning_angel, birgit and neon shaolin*

Posted: 17 years ago
ive spent today trying to be productive.. i made a set of virtual poi, one green, one purple, and ive got them moving around a little bit.

however, i cant yet figure out how to export any video, which is a problem...

"you know there are no trophys for doing silly things in real life yeah pete?" said ant "you wont get a 'listened to ride of the valkyries all the way to vietnam' trophy"

*proud owner of the very cute fire_spinning_angel, birgit and neon shaolin*

Posted: 17 years ago
Originally Posted By: Mother_Natures_Sonhttps://au.youtube.com/profile?user=AlienJon&view=videos

Is this what you're talking about?

No, that is what the original poster posted. It is like that, except it is someone spinning in real life, except they added a similar effect onto it. But you can actually see a real person spinning.

May the Centrifugal Force be with you.

::Ignorance Is Bliss

Posted: 17 years ago
I SWEAR that post was edited since I posted that... and I swear pete edited his, too.

I havent seen these other vids, which is a surprise. I've seen some also by Jon in which he makes the shapes his poi create obvious by using the same effect one uses to do it with fire, but whenever I do it with non-fire, it goes all funky.

Posted: 17 years ago
Hey again,
Lots of great replies here! thanks.

And to clarify if it hasn't already, I was referring to all those vids AlienJon posts on youtube.

I'll try playing around with Truespace and see if I can get the hang of it. Those videos have been an amazing point of view to look at different possible patterns, and it's something I'd like to play around with.

I'll post if I receive any epiphanies Feel free to contribute in this forum, I'm sure it has the potential to help more than me


happy spinning
Geoff

Posted: 17 years ago
4LeafClover: There is something like that in AlienJon and Zan's "Spinning in Arizona" video. Do not have timestamps, but it is there in a few places. That what you are thinking of?

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 17 years ago
Aha, yes, that was the video.

May the Centrifugal Force be with you.

::Ignorance Is Bliss

Posted: 17 years ago
Hey guys,
I just found this thread!
So yeah to reiterate:

Check out my Youtube Channel .

Check out the video Zan and I made: "Poi Transmission: Spinning in Arizona".
You can see our overlaying of my 3ds max simulations at these times:
0:56
4:18
5:00
You can see our use of video echo or delay effects to create trails at
0:45
2:00


Concerning True Space 7.6: I got started with 3d in live truespace v2 or something many years ago.
I had a quick play with v7.6 and it looks like it has some major promise!
Key features for the spinning community:
Ease of use, intuitive flow, and complete user interface customization.It's FREE!! and a fairly small download!Visual interface for scripting and wiring parameters together. for those that want to get under the hood and have major control.Objects (say a pair of virtual poi) can be embedded with custom behaviors that follow scripts. This means a new user could drag and drop a poi object into a 3d scene and tweak the controls to get it to do the patterns you want, much like poi bot, with out a lot of 3d animation knowledge!Here is the winner right here: Truespace 7.6 is the only 3d package out there that allows people to host a 3d "shared space" that we, as Truespace users, could all log into as little avatars and edit spinning patterns collaboratively together in the same scene file!! You have voice communications with each other wile in the "shared space"

So everyone download and start getting familiar with Truespace 7.6... I'm about to be busy working on a new Poi instructional DVD with Zan. I fly to Eugene Oregon tomorrow! So it will be a wile before I can give Truespace the time it needs.

One of the major things any of you techies would really benefit us by figuring out: a good solution for periodically dropping freeze-frame copies of the spinning objects (ie poi) over time. This gives us true 3d trails observable from any angle in the 3d scene.
These copies would be at the exact location and orientation the spinner was at on the time frame that it was copied.The copies would be sampled at a given rate.Their opacity would fade over time at a given rate, so that they eventually become invisible.The variables given above should be wired to an easy and intuitive interface attached to the object. So that we can intuitively tweak the trails until they look good!

In 3ds max I accomplished this using particle systems, which already had most of the functionality I wanted. The trick part was getting the "poi particles" to point in the correct orientation when they pop into the scene and stay put, instead of move around like a particle at some velocity! It was a little bit of a hack. I haven't yet played with Truespace's particle system, so maybe it will prove easier here.

The other way is to write a scripted behavior that creates a number of copies equal to the number of trails you want before they fade to completely transparency. Fore each of n copies, place it with location and orientation = to that of your poi object at time frame n. The copies have a default total transparency. At time n, turn copy n to fully opaque. Then animate transparency at an envelope fading every frame towards 0. When n's transparency hits 0, give it a new loc/orient = to that of the poi object's at frame n+total number of n... rinse, repeat. This way you reuse only enough copies to be visible as part of the trail, and don't waste memory on left-over transparent copies.

I'd also like to point out that if people start collaborating this way and making videos, Youtube has annotations that you can set to link to other videos and such... so that we can cross-reference specific times in each other's work straight from our videos!

-Alien Jon

+Alien Jon

Posted: 17 years ago
God, your videos are just so perfect for visualizing various types of spins. I just noticed you've added several more to your youtube channel, and several of them were things I've been struggling to wrap my mind around, but suddenly can. Amazing, amazing tool you're providing us, keep it up

Posted: 17 years ago
[Old link].

spoiler,

:R

POI THEO(R)IST

Posted: 17 years ago
holy crap! Project Poibot is amazing. It just keeps getting better ha

Posted: 16 years ago
Well, I got trueSpace.

Will have to play a bit to get everything working. Anyone else got stuff to start with?

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland