I'm going to start out this forum with a little background primer on the basic forces used within Animation Master. I am running the assumption that the user reading this thread has a basic understanding of A:M terminology and knows their way around the Options panels under Tools. If not, I will do my best to be as descriptive as possible.

Let's get started!

I've opened up Animation Master v15.0c and started a new Blank Choreography.
I expanded the properties triangle for Choreography1, Dynamics, and then Forces.


Fig1:
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As you can see, A:M starts out with a force of -100 in the Y Axis. This value is there so that when other simulations are performed, most users won't have to touch anything in a new choreography. These values can be changed at any time and also animated over time. Just think of Positive Values as a push in the positive direction along that axis, and negative values as a pull from that direction. Setting 0 to all directions will create a zero gravity environment. Figure 2 shows the directions of the Forces.


Fig2.
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A:M also has Force objects that you can add to your project. They can be added by creating a new object of type Force (Figure 3). They are defined by the primitive shapes, sphere, cone, box, and cylinder. (Figure4)
Fig3.
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Fig4.
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Back to Business!
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Starting out with a simple sphere model as the emitter, I have attached a streak particle material. I won't get into the details of the emitter because I want to focus on how the forces act on the particles. Fig1 Movie shows a default Sphere force centered at the sphere emitter. It's Magnitude is the force it applies to the particles. Positive will push the particles outward. And negative will pull the particles inward. Fig1 Movie has a Magnitude of +100. Fig2 Movie has a Magnitude of -100.
Fig1 Movie
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Fig2. Movie
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Changing the Force shape to Box has a different effect. It doesnt apply a force in all directions. The Box is directional and is indicated by the shape of it's wireframe. The box behaves like a wind tunnel. There is a diamond shape control on the box. Look at Fig5. If you dont see this control, you may be looking directly at the box instead of from the side. Don't forget to use all of A:M views to your advantage. In this view I am looking from the TOP of the Choreography, I hit the #5 key on the keypad.
Fig5.
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The Fig3. Movie shows the effet of a force magnitude of +100. Fig4. Movie shows a force of -100

Fig3. Movie
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Fig4.Movie
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Changing the Force shape to Cone will appear like a light cone with the same type of controls for changing the angle and distance. See Fig6. This Force shape acts almost like the Box except that the particles will also flow in the angle of the cone shape.
A Magnitude of +100 will blow the particles out of the cone Fig5 Movie. And a Magnitude of -100 will suck the particles back into the cone Fig6 Movie.

Fig6.
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Fig5. Movie
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Fig6. Movie
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The last shape, the cylinder behaves similarly to the Box and Cone shape. I'll have to do more research on this one! But when the Magnitude is set to +100, the particles will be blown down the cylinder, just like the box. Fig 7. Movie. But when the Force is reversed to -100, the particles get sucked into the base of the cylinder, just like the cone. Fig8. Movie.

Fig7. Movie
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Fig8. Movie
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Now that I have gone over the default shapes, I want to show how crazy things can get when you change from the predictable Fan type of Force to Vortex. Fig7. The simplist explanation of Vortex is the type of swirling you get when you open a drain and watch the water swirl out Fig9.mov. This is the Sphere Force of Vortex type. It was animated from +100 to -100 in Magnitude.

Fig7.
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Fig9. Movie
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Figure10 Movie is animated the same as the sphere, only this time the direction of the swirl happens along lengthwise of the box.

Fig10. Movie
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Friction is the last type of Force that can be used in the Force objects. What this basically does is slow down all particles that enter the shape of the force. Imagine a particle falling through air and then through Jell-O or something similar. In fact, you don't have to imagine. I've gone ahead and animated it! See Fig 11 Movie

FIg11. Movie
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I brought the popcorn. We'll be waiting

I am here sitting on the side of Eric, also waiting. popcorn hhhmmmmmmm

This should be very interesting, will go get some popcorn now !!!

Think I am going to set up a popcorn concession...

Al

Sometimes ya just don't know how high the ratings for an event turn out to be

Sorry for the delays people! I was finishing up a nifty little project last night. You can check it out here.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=32686

I will finish up the introduction tonight for this thread and start with animated force behaviors.

Quick Poll, would you rather see animated Gifs that playback in the thread, or .MOVs that can be downloaded or viewed in a pop up window? Just playing with some ideas. Let me know!

MOVs ,is what I prefer, better quality,

Me Too

MOV is the better choice...

Movie. Btw, some of my old QT movies won't show the pictures anymore, but voice is still there. I uploaded the latest QTime and still no luck. Sometimes I get a message saying I need additional software and then it tells me to go to this page with a bunch of QT add ons but no mention of which one I might need?

great, i always wanted to know more about simulations, these new forums are a real pleasure...looking forward to your posts... thanks... btw, i´m for movs, too...

Eric, if they are A:M, most of those use the Ensharpen from Techsmith: http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

How come the movie does not play when I click on the QT movie files, instead I have to save it first? It does say "download" and "done", but it does not play.

CHEERS!

StormedFX - does QT open but you get no picture or QT doesn't open? The movies are using the H.264 Codec which Older QT didn't have.