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Pictured here is the object to which the Atomize effect was applied. It began as a simple sphere, resized to make an oval. The atomize filter was applied to the object after it had been placed into the Chromosome Complex shape. Applying the Atomize effect was very tricky. The controls given for the effect are very vague. There are 4 slide controls entitled: Detail, Instability, Energy, and Life. And there is a variable entitled Duration. It was never clear to me exactly what these various controls did, but I had to play around with them to get a combination that would provide the desired look for the desired length of time. The Atomize effect breaks the selected object into many smaller objects and animates them in a dynamic, vibrating motion. Consequently, as soon as the effect was applied, the model became extremely processor and memory hungry. I had to wait 20 seconds or so for the screen to redraw every time I made a change. The nice thing about the Atomize effect was that it allowed me to take one single object and use it to create the effect of many smaller objects moving around in one step. In order to do the same thing without the Atomize effect, I would have had to make a hundred little spheres and specify motion for each individual sphere across the entire length of the animation. After applying the Atomize effect, I was still able to move the mass of little spheres around as if it were one object.
Four duplicates of the dissolving tubule object are used in the model. One at each chromosome end (which move with the chromosome) and one at each centrosome end (which remain stationary). The dissolving tubules change texture during the course of the animation. All four start out with an invisible texture and switch to their red textures once everything starts moving. The chromosome-side piece on the right also changes to a yellow texture when it passes through the bleached microtubule.
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Eric Hazen (ejhazen@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Copyright ©1996 UW-Madison Molecular Biology
This page last updated September 5, 1996