I hear that Feeling software is implementing a particle system support, and was wondering if anyone had an idea of the Collada elements that Feeling is planning to use.
I’m working on a “particle system-like” component for real-time interaction. I’d like to extend Collada to support it. A prior post on this forum advises the use of the <extra> element, but no indication of which specific element(s). My system is not purely a particle system, as it involves more complex code that can be assigned to a particle (including but not limited to physics). There are also physical constraints between particles. It’s more like an “AI” element applied to particles, and the particles themselves form mesh geometry. I’m trying to figure out where best to put this extension.
I thought of using the Collada physics model with each particle a sphere, and using the built-in physics constraints between spheres. I would like to inline some script in the <extra> element for the particles’ motion. This seems a bit strange, since it seems the Collada physics model is meant for “large” rigid bodies constrained together and might not be suited for many small particles.
Another approach I could employ is to just extend a geometry mesh vertices with particle-specific info (mass, time, etc), and use the mesh’s <extra> element to add inline code for particle behavior.