Metaballs
1: The influence of 2 positive metaballs on each other. 2: The influence of a negative metaball on a positive metaball by creating an indentation in the positive metaball's surface. Metaballs are, in computer graphics , organic-looking n-dimensional objects. The technique for rendering metaballs was invented by Jim Blinn in the early 1980s. Each metaball is defined as a function in n -dimensions (i.e. for three dimensions, ; three-dimensional metaballs tend to be most common, with two-dimensional implementations popular as well).
Metaballs
In the history of game development, there has always been a "standard" means to represent data in the game world. During the 2D era the world and its components were shown by using sprites -- collections of pixels to form an image. As the industry moved into 3 dimensions, this standard-format became the 3D model. Models representing the world, characters, and objects as collections of vertices in 3D space.
Exploring Metaballs and Isosurfaces in 2D
Introduction to metaballs Note: bold letters are vectors, normal letters are scalars Metaballs are described as: - m n = location of metaball number n - s n = size of metaball number n - k = number of balls - g = "goo"-value, which affects the way how metaballs are drawn - r = treshold for metaballs - p = place vector - | x | = magnitude (length) of vector x For a more "concrete" example, here's the same formula, written for two 2d metaballs: You could try to solve y from that equation and draw the metaballs like any normal 1-dimensional function, but as the number of balls increases, solving y becomes impossible.
Metaball math
Ryan's Guide to MetaBalls (aka Blobs)
Metaballs (also known as: Blobs) By Ryan Geiss - 3/10/2000 Contents: I. Metaballs II. Rendering III. An Optimization IV.