Week 22 progress update
Added 2023-04-21 15:31:27 +0000 UTCWork on the demo continues. This week I made the train engines spit some fire. The flames grow as the train accelerates, see the video. This was fun work! It also improves the appearance of the demo somewhat, although I am learning that it is all about adding more and more details, while keeping it all coherent to “a chosen style”.
I also wrote a blog post about the flame. I wanted to make sure the animation was consistent with the physics of Special Relativity. See here.
As part of this visual effect, I also improved my game engine’s capabilities a bit. For example, it is now possible to probe the four-acceleration across the mesh points. This is currently used to decide how strong the flame should be.
Finally, I revisited the look of the train. The problem was that it didn’t really look like a train. I spent half a day or so in Pyrtist giving it a new shape and look, also taking inspiration from images of trains on the internet. I think it looks better now.
I will attach a screenshot of the train seen from Pyrtist. I'll do this as a separate post, as image attachments in Patreon video posts are not nicely rendered inline.
