TITLE: "Circle of 12"

NAME: Ed Brannin
COUNTRY: USA (Upstate NYS)

EMAIL: brannins@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: Check codepoet.homestead.com after 11/01/2000.

TOPIC: "Alien Invasion"
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: circle12.mpg
ZIPFILE: circle12.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Pov-Ray 3.1 (WinMegaPov 0.5a)


TOOLS USED: 

MegaPOV to Render
cmpeg to encode MPEG-1,
Bink (www.radvideotools.com) for test compiles (and for handout versions)
Photoshop 5.5 to make the poster
and, of course, WinZip to make the Source Archive.


CREATION TIME: 
    didn't check.


HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD K6-300


ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 

The brown planet looms now in the pod's path: their goal is near.  The pod's
course
is adjusted to detonate on the planet's surface, and it does so - nicely leaving
its 
contents in a newly formed crater on the surface.  The newly-awakened full
Circle of 12
psionic beings prepares for the task ahead of it.  After sharing their power
with each 
other on a grand scale, they enter the ground and set off the detonation that is
their
destiny.


VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 

Windows Media Player (mplayer2.exe).  
As with most animations here, best viewed w/o auto-loop or auto-rewind.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 

   In the beginning of the animation, the camera and pod's paths 
were made with MegaPOV's splines.  The "stars" in the beginning were 
made with a bozo pattern, hence the small lines that sometimes appear.
   When the ground changes during the explosion, a cylinder with 
radius = to the major radius of the expanding torus was removed from 
the sphere, while one of the same size bounded the smaller-textured ground.
   Macro and object definitions were used fairly extansively to create the 
Aliens and the "power weave" that goes between them.  Said weave's radii 
and intensity were also controlled by splines.
   At the end, the alien's rate spin and inwards movement is handled with 
a simple Constant Acceleration equation.

This was the best MPEG quality I could manage that fit regulation size.
Most of my personal movie versions are in Bink format (via the RAD Game
tools at www.radgametools.com) with a much higher quality with comparable
size.  Homestead permitting, Bink versions of this movie should be available 
at codepoet.homestead.com within a month.

At the beginning stages of this animation's creation, I renderred for 30fps,
but later lowered the framerate to 25 to meet the size requirements.