TITLE: The Wrath of Cueball!
NAME: Matt Giwer
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: jull43@tampabay.rr.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.giwersworld.org/artv/ & artii/ & artiii/ & artiv/
TOPIC: Traveling
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: deux.mpg
ZIPFILE: deux.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    povray 3.6

TOOLS USED: 
    gimp, mpeg_encode
RENDER TIME:        24h WAG

HARDWARE USED: 
    Celeron 400, 64M, linux 2.4.18-3 kernel
         PII 333, 128M, linux 2.4.18-3 kernel
VIEWING:        The usual highly recommended computer

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This is the sequel to 8 Ball's Journey at 
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/anims/2003-04-15/8balljrn.mpg 

It finished with "The end" until "The Wrath of Cueball." As the topic then
was journey and travel is a synonym for journey this seemed like the perfect
occasion for a sequel. Of course sequels have limitations. But have a look
as see some of 8ball's progress. Legs (introduced in Evolution) and arms and
even getting some expressions. Cueball is a genetically modified clone of
8ball which may be illegal in Europe.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

        The doorway to another world (that has to be traveling) is the same
trick as making an image with a picture of itself within it. The desert
world is a separate rendering as in image_map on a simple mesh. Visible on
one side is in the animation, the mesh isn't there until the camera location
is in the -z side of zero. 

        It is done by making a separate set of images in the same aspect
ratio as the doorway. The camera for those images moves the same as it will
in the composite image. The images are then applied to the mesh in the
composite to corespond to the motion of the camera in the composite. 

        Part of this has been developing ways to simulate gravity without
having to use Hamiltonian or Lagrangian mechanics. This is to have things
fall and jump realistically without the heavy math. Better is the enemy of
good enough. Jumping up and down is a sine wave. You can judge for yourself
if that is good enough. Falling over is a "linear degrees per frame"
squared. Decide for yourself if it is good enough. 

        In the zip file x1.pov shows the squared approach to having the
"doorway" fall over. x2.pov shows the sine wave approach to jumping. 

        As usual, gimp was just for the marquee.

