I’ve got my vectorball display framework done now, and face the question, how to choreograph the ball groups. The little demo below is all hard coded, and shows a swinging cylinder of vector balls.
I assume there is a better way to write down the ball movements, spins and paths than actually program, and let the program interpret the plan. Any ideas?
Life Demo (30k):
http://www.java-gaming.org/user-generated-content/members/132627/vectorballs-r1.jar
And what is a vectorball display exactly?
Voxels is my guess.
Nothing makes sense anymore.
I thought the term is more commonly known, but it seems it isn’t. Vectorballs were a funny thing to make graphics demos. They are mentioned in several old demos and you can also google the term and will find results from the demo scene.
A little mention:
Also:
And:
Basically vectorballs are glorified particles. They have been used because they are very simple to compute and efficient to move. In the demos they were used to shape more complex objects out of points, and have funky looking transitions between the shapes.
I guess it’s once again a technique of the past, and I missed the point when it was superseeded with something better.
Is this also what games like Ballz on the SEGA MegaDrive and the original Cats, Dogs and Oddballz use? I’ve been wanting to play around with that type of effect.
Is this also what games like Ballz on the SEGA MegaDrive and the original Cats, Dogs and Oddballz use? I’ve been wanting to play around with that type of effect.
Depends.
If you like your vector balls to have some sort of crazy shape like a human, you could load a 3d model from file and use its vertices as points.
If you like quadric shapes, parametric equations work fine.
I assume you use the cylindrical coordinate system for your demo?
x = cos(t)
y = sin(t)
z = z
There’s also the supershape formula you could use if you want crazy shapes.
For movements, you could try catmull-rom splines.
Check this out if you have a droid:
The 3d text is generated via a text array. Movement is standard bouncing and smoothstep interpolation.
Rotation of text uses spherical coordinates.
Depends.
If you like your vector balls to have some sort of crazy shape like a human, you could load a 3d model from file and use its vertices as points.
If you like quadric shapes, parametric equations work fine.
I assume you use the cylindrical coordinate system for your demo?
x = cos(t)
y = sin(t)
z = z
There’s also the supershape formula you could use if you want crazy shapes.
For movements, you could try catmull-rom splines.
Check this out if you have a droid:
The 3d text is generated via a text array. Movement is standard bouncing and smoothstep interpolation.
Rotation of text uses spherical coordinates.
Sorry for the long time of absence. I’ve been busy with some non-java projects.
Splines sound like a good idea, 3D meshes for the shapes also. There are some interesting quadric and also quartic shapes, but I’m afraid of the math involved with those …
Thanks for the ideas, this will be helpful next time I try to make a demo 
Sorry for the long time of absence. I’ve been busy with some non-java projects.
Splines sound like a good idea, 3D meshes for the shapes also. There are some interesting quadric and also quartic shapes, but I’m afraid of the math involved with those …
Thanks for the ideas, this will be helpful next time I try to make a demo