wCreating some beaming particle

[perfectlifepan]

  Hi...
  I have created some particles  with pointArray,specular and emissive material in my project~,but these material cannot simulate real beaming effect such as astigmatic effect,decay..
 So, can anyone know what the principle is and how to do so with Java3D...thank

[Mike Jacobs]

If you are referring to motion blur, use a LineArray instead of a PointArray for your particles.  Each particle would be a line segment instead of a point.  You'll have to designate one of the line end points as the 'head' and the other end as the 'tail'.  Assign vertex colors with an alpha value of the head vertex to be fully opaque and the tail vertex of the line to be fully transparent.  Assign transparency attributes to be NICEST and Java3D will smoothly shade your line segment between the fully opaque and fully transparent colors giving the effect of a motion blur.

Your particle system will need to be updated to save the old head vertex position to the tail prior to updating the position of the head.

Mike