EMAIL:lrwii@joplin.com NAME:Leroy Whetstone TOPIC:Invention COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Exploring Mars COUNTRY: USA RENDERER USED: POVray 3.6 Win TOOLS USED: Cmpeg & Cmpeg6 & POV I started to use Cmpeg6(a front end for Cmpeg)to make the Mpeg but the editor didn't function very well, but I could still use it to preview my scenes. I made a POV program to one create the list file then ran Cmpeg from dos. Special Thanks to space-graphics.com url: http://www.space-graphics.com e-mail: info@space-graphics.com For the Global Mars planet imagery bump and color map. CREATION TIME: Render Time ~34 HOURS (about a minute per frame) HARDWARE USED: 1.2ghz Athlon VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: I viewed this ActivMovie Win98 with no problem. The screen resolution is 320*200. ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: My own take on the next generation of Mars explorers and to celebrate One Martain Year of Spirit and Oppertunity on Mars. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: This is my second entry. There are no zip file because I'm lazy and everthing is so scattered. Mars : I had dowloaded the bump map from space-graphics.com a long time ago and played with it. I made the planet and close up views using Pov's isosurface. I had set it up where you could choose a longitude and latitude to get the close up. You could disect a locate by either clipping a lower limit(like water)or by clipping the height(cutting a mountain). When I started this annimate the old close up views where to far away (35-50 miles). So I took the map and wrote a Pov that zoomed in Real close. I used pigment functions and splines to make a mesh. I made two meshs. One for the landing stage and one for the flying stage. Used the Isosurface for the intro. The colors of mars where harder to get right the closer you got. Instead of using a image map, I stole colors from different locations on mars and made my on color map for the landing site and the fly zone. For the landing site I used layered textures to simulate the bounce marks. Lander : This took a while to make, it's expandable. When I was making it I didn't know just what size it should be. My robot had to fit inside. Each side is a mesh with 2 movable triangle inner doors. Each side can move and rotate. When the robot was positioned I tested the ship size until I got something that worked. The airbags are simple texture spheres that can inflate or deflate togather. Robot : I've been playing with the basis for this robot a long time. Trying to get a system set up where one can create two poses and have the computer make the in between poses for frame to frame animation and where the poses are reusable. There are 4 files for each pose. One for each hand,one for the face,one for the body. When you animate you have 4 action files these files are list of poses and frame counts. The number of POV files that makes all this work is large. The main thing about the set up so far that you can change the robot's appearence fairly eazy. There still a lot to do. Special Effects: lightning = the color cycle through red,green,blue,white once every 4 frames. Each bolt is made up of 4 sets of connected cylinders. Main Sign: I used pigment average with cells and an image map of the words. After thoughts: I got started late on this entry. I don't know what I was thinking with the holidays and other obligations. But I had fun. It could be a lot better. Espeically the mpeg conversion, I didn't have time to do it up right. And try and find out how on the Net.