TITLE: Roadkill
NAME: Moussa Chehade
COUNTRY: Canada
EMAIL: darkfire_m89@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: N/A

TOPIC: Sports
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: dragster.mpg
RENDERER USED: 
    3ds max 6


TOOLS USED: 

        TMPGEnc   - to convert to .mpg
        RADVideoTools  - to convert from .mov to .avi (3ds max was giving me a
hard time
          saving to avi, so I had to use another output format)
        Video Post (3ds max) - to stitch all the clips together, add a title
screen, and correct 
          the gamma 
        Adobe Photoshop - texture creation


CREATION TIME: 

        1 1/2 weeks modelling and scene setup
        5h rendering


HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 4 2.0 GHz


ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 


        What starts out as a practice drag race between two soon ends in
catastrophe when a gull
swoops down low over the strip. Led on by the irresistible scent of food, the
gull is 
unaware of its surroundings, or more importantly, the dragsters tearing up the
track behind it...


VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 
    at 30fps


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 


        On the track I first tried using one texture, but repeating the texture
created obvious 
patterns. To solve that, I created a composite material, with the base as an
asphalt texture. 
Over top of that, I used a different but similar asphalt texture, and blended
them together with a 
noise map. The track was boring, so in Photoshop I created a dirt/paint/tire
marks map and added
that to the composite. On top of all that, I added a noise map with a dirty
colour to add even 
more variation to the track, and scaled it unevenly to simulate streaks.

        The mountains in the background are just a texture applied to a large
cylinder
        The lens flare at the beginning of the animation used a third light,
only with it's 
intensity set to a very low value. A lens flare rendering effect was then
applied to the light.
        The motion blur and depth of field are also rendering effects. Rather
than using 
multi-passmotion blur and depth of field, I used rendering effects instead to
save time, 
although they are less accurate and more prone to artifacts.

        The smoke/dust produced by the dragsters are Spray and SuperSpray
particle systems.
The material for the smoke used a radial gradient and a noise map for the
opacity.
        The fire from the blue dragster's engine uses a PArray particle system,
with an Electric
noise map (from Blur Studios) for diffuse colour and opacity. The phase of the
noise was animated 
over time to make the flames flicker and change shape.

        The gull was modelled out of editable patches (Bezier patches) and then
set up with
bones to animate it. Textured in Photshop. This is my first shot at animating
with bones, quite 
honestly, so the gull movement isn't very realistic. But I don't think it's all
THAT bad.

        The flash after the gull is sucked into the intake is a glow rendering
effect applied
to the whole image. If I had more time, I definitely would have improved this.
Also note that
I used the glow effect on the lights in the 2nd and 4th clips.
        To animate the mufflers rumbling, as well as camera shake, I made use of
the Noise 
animation controller to alter the position of the objects randomly over time.

        And just a note: the product names used on the signs and on the decals
on the 
dragsters are fictional. If you've got nothing better to do with your time, try
to spot them all 
(though I sure hope you do have something better to do)