EMAIL: IsaiahDave@aol.com NAME: Isaiah Eyre TOPIC: Animation - Gadgets and Odd Devices COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Goldbergesque COUNTRY: USA WEBPAGE: http://members.aol.com/IsaiahDave, http://prism.cjb.net RENDERER USED: Ray Dream Studio 5 TOOLS USED: Pencils, Papers, Ray Dream Studio 5, sPatch, Paint Shop Pro 4 and 5, CMPEG, Videotrope CREATION TIME: 50 hours or so to render.. As for creation, I have no idea! HARDWARE USED: 486 DX2 66, 20MB RAM, 540MB HDD, 324MB HDD. VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: Almost anything will work! At least 16-bit color display, and a computer that is faster than mine. ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: This animation was rendered at 160x120 because the rendering was very slow-going, and anything bigger would have taken way too long. It doesn't look too bad when it's viewed at double size, though. I got the idea from the cartoonist inventor, Rube Goldberg, whom I have named my animation after. Rube Goldberg would illustrate a scene in which there are several complicated steps taken to accomplish a simple job. I would recommend that you have a look at www.rube-golberg.com and read more about him. This is the animation order: A solar panel gathers energy from light, it sends electricity to a nearby turntable with a stick and some sandpaper attached to it. The turntable swings around, strikes the match, lights the fuse, ignites the cannon, which shoots a cannonball perfectly through a mechanism which drops another cannonball onto a catapult, and flips a switch on, starting the hydraulic pump(or pneumatic - don't ask me..I just made it up). The pump forces down the blade upon the block of cheese, and viola, a nicely sliced piece of cheese. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: I started with pencils and papers, which is the best way to get an idea, since you can't exactly doodle ideas with a 3-D modeler. Some parts of the plan had to be altered because they would have been too difficult, (or impossible), to render. To start with, I got some basic ideas. I modeled a simple solar panel, which is in the beginning scene, and then the turntable, wires, match, etc. It would take too long to explain it all, and anyway I probably don't remember all of the details anyway. I am especially pleased with the camera movement, as it follows the electric wires from the panel to the turntable, and the cut between scenes just as it strikes the match. (The match striking part had to be modified with Paint Shop Pro to get those little sparks in there) The fuse burning scene was a hard one to figure out. I tried many different things to try and get it to look right, but nothing seemed to work. Ray Dream Studio cannot "burn" an object, and I couldn't shorten the fuse by deleting extrusion path points throughout the animation timeline (unfortunately). To take care of this problem, I rendered the animation WITHOUT the fuse, and then rendered a still of the fuse itself, exported it as a PSD with a mask in the alpha channel, brought it into Paint Shop Pro, (and the other frames) cut out the fuse, pasted it into each frame, gradually shortening it, and drawing a few sparks around the end. (I did the same thing in the following scene)...only problem is, the fuse doesn't cast a shadow. The next scene took lots of planning, modeling, and ideas. I modeled a cannon, a table, a cutting board, two hydraulic ( or penumatic - you decide! ) cylinders, several pipes, wires, a blade, some cheese, and an elaborate "Pump" which is just a bunch of mechanical-looking shapes placed randomly inside a metal frame. Looks convincing, doesn't it? (Maybe I should've had it vibrate when it was turned on, huh?) The cannonball was placed inside the back of the cannon, and by timing it correctly, I made the camera shake, and the hanging light swing wildly when the cannon fired. (I also added a little motion blur to the cannonball when it came out) After all that, I started a new file, in which I modeled the contraption with the catapult and the lightswitch, etc. It was hard getting everything right, even though it was made mostly of primitives (cubes). I had the cannonball fire straight through the space in this assembly, knock down a hinged board, which dropped another ball onto a catapult which flips on the power switch to the pump thingy. Then, once again, I used the technique of following the wires from the origin to the destination, where you can get a glimpse of the pump, (This scene took about 30 hours to render alone..Do I get extra credit for patience?) If you look carefully, there are two clamps attached to the power contacts on the pump, which the wires are attached to. Then I closed in on the table, where the blade comes down and makes a very nice sliced piece of cheddar cheese! (Now all I need is a hamburger creating device) Please send comments to IsaiahDave@aol.com. More Ray Dream Studio information can be found at www.raydream.com, and I also have a tutorial page at http://members.aol.com/IsaiahDave/raydream Thank you! Isaiah