Im gonna attempt to create a sun in opengl, with all relevant physics and such, i was just wondering about what the best way to do this would be? i could create a helluva lot of particles, add the gravity and rules etc and let it do its thing, but that would take alot of processing power no doubt, so what dyou think the best way would be ? (to draw a sun) thanks

quote:Original post by JafferAB
Im gonna attempt to create a sun in opengl, with all relevant physics and such

Thousands of articles have been written on the Sun. It's much more complex than you may think. I'm working with my teacher on the solar cycle this summer, and really, there are dozens of major approximations in the simulation, we're not trying to model "everything", but a very specific aspect, the code is thousand of lines long, and it fails to be accurate on many, many accounts.

If you want something that looks good (this is what you should want), you'll have to use some tricks, which are dependant on the context of your game. What are you creating?

Cédric

[edited by - Cedric on July 27, 2003 10:30:13 PM]

Yeah do you want a graphical representation (reasonably straight-forward), a long distance physical representation (easy), a short range physical representation (pretty complex to get surface shape) or an internal representation (very tough and requires reading on Uni-level astrophysics)?