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• Demo effects and Plane9 progressing

  published on 1/23/2010 7:41 PM

  I have had some time to work on the next version of Plane9. Its still pretty much up in the air of what will actually go into the next version when I now release it.

  One new node that I know will make it into the next release is the "rotator" node. It's rather simple but useful since it allows you to control the speed of rotation along the x,y and z axis. It does this by a 'rotation per minute' value. So if you want to get a object to rotate easily you would attach this node to the rotation part of the object node.

  A few new much needed mesh nodes will also be released. Among others are disc, cylinder, sphere and cone mesh nodes.

  I have been reading a few blogs/sites regarding demo effects. Two of the better ones are [url:graphics size coding|http://sizecoding.blogspot.com/] and [url:shader toy|http://www.iquilezles.org/apps/shadertoy/]. I would really like to add some of the ideas into the visualizer however creating a demo effect and adding it as a new node to plane9 is two quite different things. The demo effects are created to have a single look. However for the nodes I always strive for as much flexibility and adjustable values as possible so you can change and configure them easily. Doing this while making sure the effect looks correct can be tricky but should be worth it in the end.