TITLE: After Their Last Supper
NAME: Erin Garlock
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: egarlock@technologist.com
WEBPAGE: http://members.easyspace.com/gametool/images/tips.html
TOPIC: Decay
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: eg_decay.mpg
ZIPFILE: eg_decay.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.1g

TOOLS USED: 
    cmpeg, Poser3

CREATION TIME: 

  Several weeks to get the columns of flame and explosion down.
  2 weeks to layout scene and get object motions down.
  A couple of days to learn poser and get the skeletons placed.
  Total Render Time: 1100 hours, roughly 9 straight days with all 6 machines
running.


HARDWARE USED: 

  2 P350 - 256Mb,
  1 P233 - 96Mb,
  1 P200 - 64Mb,
  2 P166 - 64Mb


ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 


They trusted their king with all their heart.  This was a mistake.  It make take
an eternity
for a deteriorated soul to gather the courage to take revenge, but in an instant
the deed is done.


VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 


Please send me an email if you wish to learn about this submission.  I hope the
source files 
are sufficient and self explanitory.

The biggest comment I have though is that every entitiy is fairly independent of
everything else.  
There are numerous "clock" variables floating around, but should also be fairly
localized.  
In a nut shell, my intent was to adhere to an object oriented design, but with a
non-OO 
tool it can be hard at times.

There are a couple items about the animation that took some steeping learning
time on my part to
figure out, and are worth noting.  

In POV an area light is still a point light, the only difference
is shadowing.  If you really want a light source that has a dimension you have
to use a collection 
of point/area lights.  To see this look at the hotspots on the columns for each
of the columns
of flame.  Using a single light source would have created a spot like you would
see in the real 
world on a sphere.

For an object, with an image for the pigment, that intersects with another
object, the cojoining volume 
will be black even if both have transparency and are hollow.  This shows up as a
strange black area 
on the tapestry during the explosion sequence.  If you know how to fix this,
please let me know.

And finally, if you want to use an atmospheric media for really cool look fog,
forget it, at least
for an animation sequence.  I had to use the more generic Fog directive vs.
media, otherwise I was 
going to be running many many hours per frame.  Anyone have some free time on a
CRAY I can borrow?
Again, if you know of a work solution let me know.


