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Contributed by Rodney Butrymowicz

These are examples of a mass/spring simulation with gravity and a semi-permeable ground. I have a couple of quirky utilities to generate a series of frames (one for each frame of the animation) and the necessary ANI file for a morph object. Obviously several objects can be done seperately and combined in the Animator. The stellated cube animation is 240 frames and was generated in about 30 seconds, the ring animation is 300 frames and took about 45 minutes to generate. (600 MHz PIII)

The utilities I have written allow for many more forces (ElectroMagnetic Fields, Muscles, Drag, ..) and also some simple constraints (a vertex may be allowed to move freely in a plane, but cannot move off of the plane).

The changes/additions I have in mind begin with the ability to edit vertex and edge properties in the Designer module. This would include Mass, Velocity, spring coeficients, and various other properties (Charge, Lifespan, ...) Also modifications to the import/export routines for additional chunks in the MFX format.

Plug-Ins would be necessary to provide internal bracing for models, and the ability to turn off automatic face creation when linking exactly two vertices. Perhaps others have ideas for appropriate tools to edit velocity (impart spin)

I will also provide the ring object to show how internal bracing supports the object and how "naked" edges are used to specify velocity.