Electron Analogy

Artwork Finished Projects
1

Hi,

Blender is amazing. Here’s how I did this one:

  • Changed the view to the top.

  • Added four spheres, positioned them equidistantly.

  • Added NURB Curves. It turns out that if the NURB Curves overlap, they cancel each other out. I stumbled on this behaviour quite by accident, and managed to use it.

  • Scaled and textured the rings.

  • Added three more spheres (the electrons).

  • Added three Bezier Circles.

  • Scaled the Bezier Circles with the tracks.

  • Made the Bezier Circles the Parent Path (CTRL-P) of the electron spheres. I did the following to set up the motion blur:

  • Changed the Buttons window to the Node Editor.

  • Enabled Use Nodes.

  • Added a Vector Blur (Add >> Filter >> Vector Blur)

  • Positioned the Vector Blur between Composite and Render Layer.

  • Connected Image to Image, Z to Z and Speed to Speed (from Render Layer to Vector Blur)

  • Connected Image to Image (from Vector Blur to Composite). Then came the tricky part … making the electrons blur at different speeds.

  • Changed the view from SR-2 Model to SR-1 Animation.

  • Selected a Bezier Circle path.

  • Changed the Path Length (PathLen) from 100 to 60 for the first ring, 30 for the second, and 15 for the third.

  • Positioned the electrons so that they would not overlap each other in the render.

  • Clicked to the Scene button, then the Render Layers tab.

  • Enabled Passes: Vec.

  • Enabled OSA at 11.

  • Enabled MBLUR. I noticed that I could animate the electron balls and watch them spin around their orbitals. Hours of fun just watching. Better than gazing at growing grass, let me tell you.

Several hours later, the 3200x2400 picture finished rendering. Comments?

T

Attachments

electron-analogy.jpg1024×768 128 KB

2

Interesting concept. Helium atom?

3

Hi, SuperSonicSimon.

Not any atom in particular … although since it is shown with two different types of particles in its nuclei, I suppose it could be considered helium. However, helium generally does not have three electrons zipping around it. The picture is to help explain how electrons stay in the confines of their shell until they either gain or release energy – which causes a “quantum leap” as the electron instantly flips from one shell to another.

It’s also to help explain that electrons aren’t really like solid billiard balls, but tend to be more like fuzzy probabilities.

T

4

Woah that is a huge picture size! Good job on the blur effects, and an interesting concept behind it.