Is there anyone that can give me a suggestion about how to visualize wind. I was thinking about using fog but I wasn''t sure if it could be animated in this way. Plus I don''t what the fog to encompass the whole screen just in a certain section moving across the screen. Please your input would help me get started. thanks, laura laura stephens

2D or 3D?

My suggestion would be to have some sort of particles being blown about.

-- Wait, wait, wait....who''s Nambla Fett?

Interesting question. Best way I could think to visualize wind would be to have something floating in it, i.e. leaves blowing around, clouds moving, trees swaying, flags lapping, windmills turning, et cetera. Cartoons often use pale lines whipping around to indicate wind, usually dust clouds too. Wind is generally accomponied by sound. Whether you want a deafening roar of ambient destruction or just the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves is up to you. Post back the outcome, I''d like to hear more about your efforts.

The way I did it (they say that strive was a succesful one ) is as follows:

1. Create a texture of any nice white cloud on a black background, but such one, that if You rotate it a bit You won''t tell it from the original one (later, and after some tries You''ll understand what i mean) or just make many different cloud textures (white -> black background)

2. Use blending glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA,GL_ONE); to draw it!
3. ...before drawing a polygon rotate it on random angle in random direction...
4. Draw many different polygons in such way, better put some polygon''s in one plane, otheres in different plane - to make 3d effect...
5. Move the polygons... (Your cloud objects consist of: polygon position (x,y,z), velocity (vx,vy,vz), if you want acceleration and so on...)

That''s all! If You have any question, I''ll be happy to answer

Well, here is my problem in more detail. I have an ocean simulated already and want to visualize the wind direction above the water to demonstrate the direction of the ocean current. I didn''t want to use vectors but more of a patch of fog traveling on top of the ocean from the direction it is coming from.

laura stephens

hey sounds cool.
perhaps you guys would upload it and post the link in here would be interested to see some of these effects.

Ever played Pirates? They used clouds to visualize the wind direction...

It was 2d though, but would work fine with any kinda visualisation where the camera is overlooking the scene
(camera is located up in the sky and pointed down at the ocean).

How would I go about making clouds? What texture would I use? Do you have any ideas about where I could find the textures to make clouds or tutorials?

laura stephens

Hi! I''m the annonymous poster above...

The way i did textures is as follows:
1) Run Adobe photoshop 6.0
2) Make a picture with blach background
3) Radial Gradient from white to black (like the white sun in the black space!)
4) Filter->Distort->Wave - several times!

That''s all! Good luck!

P.S. If You want i can send You a texture

In Photoshop there''s already the ''Cloud'' effect !
You have to select a gradient ''for instance from black to white) and select ''Cloud'' and that''s all.
It works on the selection : be careful that you don''t apply the effect on a transparent picture !