Multiple sims

[YoyoBoy]

The job I'm working on is a couple aerial shots of 30 or so civil war steamboats headed down the Mississippi river. So I need to calculate sims on 30 pairs of smokestacks, but I don't have time to sit around and babysit each one. I assume there's a way through scripting to do this? What would I type?

Thanks.

[Ivaylo Katev]

you can calculate only few sims and render multiple copies.
but if you want different sims... well, without experience in the sripting the chances are not good. but just as a direction, for each sim in a cycle you have to:
1. create a simulator and calculate the position based on the postition of the smokestack
theis depends on the smokestack geometry, but it looks like that:
$the_sim.pos=$cannon.pos
$the_sim.pos[3]=$the_sim.pos[3]+H*$smk.pos[2], where H is the height of the smokestack.
2. copy the settings from the preliminary prepared simulator that produces the desired results.
3. execute a_startsim $the_sim
4. execute a_wait $the_sim , without this all the simulators will start simulataneously that will decrease the performance

[YoyoBoy]

Wow, thanks for this.

I think I've decided to just make a few and copy them around though. I thought I needed to create 30 separate ones because:
a) I was solving the smokestacks as pairs rather than individually.
b) the boats are moving and the wind is blowing.
c) the river bends sharply, but wind does not.

But I think I can get away with a more billboard-like approach.

Thanks again.

[YoyoBoy]

Forgive my scripting ignorance. I do need to simulate several in a row and I'm trying to use these commands. I assume there are strategically placed brackets and such required?

This only executes the last one:
a_startsim $PhoenixFD001
a_wait $PhoenixFD001
a_startsim $PhoenixFD002
a_wait $PhoenixFD002
a_startsim $PhoenixFD003
a_wait $PhoenixFD003
a_startsim $PhoenixFD004

Thanks.

[Ivaylo Katev]

no brackets are needed, i just tested it and it works fine. how did you test it? typing the text in the listener, or creating a new script and evaluating it? i suppose you tried to execute this by pasting and pressing enter in the listener - in this case only the last row is executed

[YoyoBoy]

Ahh! Thank you!