Hi,

I'm very new to processing, and to OpenGL. My questions, and interest, were sparked when I found Robert Hodgin's demo of what appears to be a sun created with processing (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wEh8Ema9n9w#t=0m50s) ...

A few of my questions are:

- What is actually happening in this visual? Are images being used for anything?
- What is creating the firey haze around the sun? Is that particles?
- What is creating the tiny glowing particles orbiting the sun?

I'm not really looking for in-depth maths or anything, as I can learn that myself once I know what's happening, but if somebody could tell me in laymans terms what each of the elements of the visuals are then that would be great

I'm really just trying to figure out any of the basic ideas of how to create something like this. Obviously it will be a long time before I can do it myself, but I need a starting point so I know what stuff I should start to learn.

Thanks

Believe me, I've read everything on these forums and on his blog but unfortunately, unless you understand what is happening, you don't know what to look into further.

From my beginner's understanding... He is using a particle emitter to create the firey haze around the sun. And simple images to create the glowing yellow particles, which seem to be controlled by attraction to the sun. I think there are also ribbons to create the protruding blue tail things.

I still have no idea how that sphere is textured, so if anybody could enlighten me there that would be great.

I've got the source from his particle emitter on his blog, but it doesn't work without Damkjer's OCD library, which I can't find anywhere because the link to it is broken

i see physics and sphere mesh there.

you can define a sphere's surface and from there you get a list of vertices and curve paths along the surface.

first draw a sphere.
each sphere has a haze effect. for each particle in the sphere's surface draw some particles in it aswell. particles that belong to the main haze effect so it can fill the front side of the sphere.

apply transformations to that sphere and everything should move with it, that means relative to the main rotation.

he also has a ground clip plane to which the particles are clamped. that means the particles around the sphere stay on ground plane, lets say y=0. based on the physics applied to them they will behave correctly. he also draws a ground "shadow" for each particle when its near the ground plane..

now. with all that, play around and you can get a close effect.

be aware that the correct textures and colors will make your effect look good or bad.

hope i made myself clear.

well, most of the videos from robert hodgin are prerendered, they dont run in real time, at least not with that many particles and visual elements.

but in terms of performance if you use direct opengl calls instead of the processing drawing api everything becomes magically faster, a lot faster