interactive fibre optics

[aracid]

hey all

i really would like any advice on making something that looks like fibre optics, they should be emitted from an object and move through the world avoiding other objects.

i was thinking particles because i want them to be very organic and turbulant and also needs to move around other objects, however the render needs to be solid, (fibre optics :-) )

i was thinking of grouping particles based on their emission point and then extruding between grouped particles, however i have no idea how i would do that. this would also be nice because then i dont need a high point count.

anyways

i would love it if any one has any comments or ideas

thanks in advance

aracid

[bobster]

Emit the amount of particles in the direction you want. Append an interact pop. This will keep the particles from getting to close to each other. Append a split pop and turn off inherit velocity and 0 out varience. Now you should have an obvious trail of particles. Append a drag pop to stop split particles from straying. In sops append an delete sop to popnet and put 0 for group to delete first particle primitive. Append an add sop and for polygons choose by group. Now you have a bunch of organic lines animating. To avoid hitting other objects I suppose you could emit static particles on objects which can be used with interact pop to cause particles to repel when getting too close.

[aracid]

hey bobster

thanks for the help, i did use ur technique, however i just used the particle trails data, made a primitive between each point in the trail and saved that as a line, then made an otl that breakes up the curve into separate lines and then extrudes each "trail" separately, puts a shader on thread and another on the tips, and it works perfectly!

just thought i'd let u know

thanks once again

all the best

aracid