TITLE: Robo Dance
NAME: Bill Lemens
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: bill@lemens.com
WEBPAGE: N/A (yet)
TOPIC: Robot
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: robdance.mpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Animation Master

TOOLS USED: 
    Animation Master for modeling, animating, and rendering, MGI
VideoWave II for titles and mpeg conversion. Paint Shop Pro for JPG conversion.
Sony Handycam Digital 8 for reference video for animation.

CREATION TIME: 
    To darn long - just started using the package.

HARDWARE USED: 
    Alternately souped up Pentium 200 (wah!) and Compaq AMD K7 Athlon
600mhz (yea!).

ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 

Robbie the GPHR (General Purpose Humanoid Robot - pronounced gopher) Model 2 had
seen humans dancing and longed to know what it was about. He bought some music
and decided to give it a try. 
Robbie sets up a video camera in his appartment to self-record his venture,
turns on the music, and goes. At first he is unsure what to do, a bit nervous
and rusty, but as the music gets into him, he begins to get down and get funky,
until at last he is truly "Travolta!" ;-)
Now he knows why humans dance. It is fun.

VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 

Seated with a nice beverage.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 

This is my first animation. The robot was modeled after a combination of
Asimov's "Robbie" (who I thought about doing in an interaction with the girl,
but quickly gave that idea up) and a Star Wars droid, but largely of my own
imagination. After modeling I put on Spherical constraints to keep the model
animating in a way permisible with his construction, and then used the
reference video for the movements. I did not use any other constraints, such as
those that keep feet in place, as I had not read that part of the manual yet
:-o and thus his feet slip a little on the floor. Oh, well.

The music he is dancing to, incidentaly, is K. C. and the Sunshine Band's "Get
Down Tonight", but since I have no time to re-record it myself, you have to
imagine it, or play it yourself. ;-)

This exercise was a lot of fun, but took a good deal longer than I thought it
would. The idea came to me while listing to the oldies station here in Austin,
Texas, and has expanded into a whole little story that I will try to animate
sometime in the near future. For now though, I am getting back to my life! Hope
you enjoy, and that Robbie puts a little smile on your face.

