What exactly is a Spline, and why does it need reticulating?

[Johann MacLeod]

As anyone who plays any of the "Sim" games knows there is a certain baffling aspect! And thus the question that has kept many wise and worthy a philosipher up at night counting the angels that dance such slendid allemands on the head of a pin, goes as follows: What, exactly, is a Spline, and why, particularly, does it need reticulating?

 

[Shadylookin]

i think they just put that there to get just that result

 

[Johann MacLeod]

that has to my most eloquent post

 

[Neomega]

hmm, I know it has something to do with 3-d rendering. My wild guess would be a spline is a curve that forms 3-d models based on an alogorithm, and reticulating would be the re-calculating of that alogorithm as the Spline deforms to create motion.

A very wild guess, BTW.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Don't know you're talking about, but pls use a more descriptive title for your thread in future.

 

[WillJ]

Will Wright said in an interview that he made it up as a joke, IIRC. It dates back from Sim City 2000, when you could hear a lady say "reticulating splines" while you waited for the computer to develop terrain, and it continued in the Sims, SimCity 3000, SimCity4, and other Sims games.

*looking for link to interview*

Edit: Here's a link that explains it.

 

[Johann MacLeod]

i know the sims vacation (on holiday) it says "Still Reticulating splines" and in unleashed it says "Reticulating splines again"

 

[dannyevilcat]

*Finally realizes what this thread is all about*

To be honest, I'd never really given it much thought. In the Sims, I was always far more baffled that one could pee in one's pants at the espresso machine, and still hold a conversation with a woman.

 

[Belle Du Jour]

I thought that all the text at the start of the game was made up to sound cool. It doesn't do anything.

 

[HuckFinn]

A spline is a form of curve... it's piecewise polynomial, which makes it flexible for modelling arbitrary functions... splines are used a lot in computer graphics. Reticulating appears to mean


v. re·tic·u·lat·ed, re·tic·u·lat·ing, re·tic·u·lates (-lt)
v. tr.

1. To make a net or network of.
2. To mark with lines resembling a network.

Soo... reticulating splines is making a network of curves