"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Stunning. The image is superb, but it simply gives no hint as to the realism and
> immediacy conveyed by the animation. I almost can't believe it was done with
> POV-Ray!
>
> Gonna watch this a few times more :)

Thanks indeed! I tried to put as much detail into it the scene as I
could--without going overboard. For example, most of the panel line detail on
the bomber isn't really 'correct'--I took a basic 'net-acquired blueprint of the
plane (typical line art, as usual) cleaned it up a bit, made the other parts of
the image transparent, then simply projected it down onto the B-29 as an
image_map, an additional overlay texture. (Luckily the bomber is mostly
symmetrical from top to bottom!) But then I just *had* to add some rivets, and
decals, and...

KW

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"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> There's a brief moment, I think around the two - three second mark, where the
> smoke from the burning engine doesn't appear to be blowing backward as fast as
> would be expected based on the speed of the passing clouds.
>

That's...entirely possible! ;-)  Getting the speed of everything to match up
took some doing (and COUNTLESS viewings of the animation.) Basically because the
camera itself *isn't* moving (in z), while everything else is. I used the moving
puffy clouds as a kind of 'standard speed marker' for everything else...they
were the first things I added to the scene, after the B-29. And since the black
smoke media has its own moving 'bumps' density pattern (and scaling, of course),
getting it to visually match the other scene movements wasn't exactly a walk in
the park. (In fact, I think I may have *cheated* it's speed, to look correct
even though it wasn't) But the speed doesn't change during the
animation--AFAIK!--so the odd glitch you're seeing *could* be just an effect of
the temporarily alignment of certain moving elements. Or the 'foreshortening'
effect of the slightly telephoto camera lens setting (compressing everything in
z.)

OR, I simply could have screwed up... :-[  My eyeballs got fatigued from looking
at this damn scene so many times. I'll examine my code to see.

KW

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"Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Wow, high marks indeed!  Great modeling.  There are many things I could ask but
> I'd like to know what approach you took for the ground and the motion.  You did
> a good job at creating an unsteady camera.
>

Thank you! I have a few time-saving 'tools' that I've constructed over the last
couple of years that I regularly use now in my animations (and that I've been
*meaning* to post.) The shaking-camera look comes from one such tool, basically
a random-spline generator--a macro (but designed for animation). I've since
discovered that it has MANY more uses. It's all over this scene, in various
places--the contrails, the dipping/turning of the airplane, etc. Sometimes
modified, sometimes not. In fact, this scene helped me 'optimize' the code for
it.

The ground is just a B&W satellite image (of Paris!) that I 'colorized', and
applied to a plane, with some movement of the image_map in z. There are also
tens of thousands of buildings down there (simple boxes, in random sizes and
groupings)--which really can't be seen too clearly. But the ground just didn't
look 'correct' without them--kind of a subliminal detail. I guess.

Ken

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"Thomas de Groot" <tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:
> Truly amazing work, Kenneth. I am literally speachless.
>

Thank you, Thomas. I feel the same way about your work, and always look forward
to seeing what you've come up with.

KW

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

> I can host it on povray.org in a temp dir if you like. pop me an email if so.
>

Thanks, Chris!  A very nice offer; I'll contact you.

Ken

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>Kenneth  on date 25/03/2010 05:03 wrote:
> Four months in the making! With a cast of thousands! (of objects)
>
The animation is really great! Superb!
Paolo

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> Thank you! I have a few time-saving 'tools' that I've constructed over the last
> couple of years that I regularly use now in my animations (and that I've been
> *meaning* to post.) The shaking-camera look comes from one such tool, basically
> a random-spline generator--a macro (but designed for animation). I've since
> discovered that it has MANY more uses. It's all over this scene, in various
> places--the contrails, the dipping/turning of the airplane, etc. Sometimes
> modified, sometimes not. In fact, this scene helped me 'optimize' the code for
> it.
>
> The ground is just a B&W satellite image (of Paris!) that I 'colorized', and
> applied to a plane, with some movement of the image_map in z. There are also
> tens of thousands of buildings down there (simple boxes, in random sizes and
> groupings)--which really can't be seen too clearly. But the ground just didn't
> look 'correct' without them--kind of a subliminal detail. I guess.
>
> Ken

This animation keeps drawing me back - I can't stop watching it and studying the
details. Your random spline generator is fascinating because the motion of the
planes is so realistic. What a great example of a cool solution to a problem
that works out so well. (By "Problem," I just mean figuring out how to achieve
the results you want.) I think I enjoy this animation so much for two totally
different reasons. First for its artistic excellence; and secondly but maybe
even more importantly, because we all know that a project of this magnitude
requires so much thought, planning, and ingenious solutions along the way, the
results of which can be "seen" by other POV users just as clearly as the image
itself.

SO... It's very interesting to know more details of how the animation was
created. Please feel free to share more!

Regards,
Dave Blandston

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"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> SO... It's very interesting to know more details of how the animation was
> created. Please feel free to share more!
>

Thanks indeed for your thoughtful comments.  I guess each of us 'toils in
solitude' while trying to creating something worthwhile in POV-Ray, spending
untold hours on it--so it's definitely nice to see that the work is appreciated
(even with its flaws.)

And now that you've asked... :-)  :-)  :-)

I added my own 'fake ambient occlusion' TEXTURE to the B-29--using a simple
'shadowing' technique that I picked up from the newsgroups. I made that as a
separate render--by placing LOTS of lights around a white B-29, with a white
background. In Photoshop, I inverted the image, made it into an alpha-channel
(with the 'real' image there being black) then applied that in POV-Ray as a
typical planar image_map, projected from above onto the final airplane. Far from
perfect--in fact, a rather amateurish attempt at AO!-- but it adds a tiny bit
more realism. (I'll be glad to post the image_map, to show what I mean.)

The puffy clouds are probably the thing I'm most proud of (in how they solved a
parsing-and-render-time problem, while still looking decent.)  As mentioned,
they're not media--which would have taken forever to render--but turbulated
image_maps projected onto simple scaled spheres. Actually, I used just *one*
(rather exacting) alpha-channel image_map, which was then run through some
randomized turbulence code inside a cloud-generating #while loop, before being
applied to a particular sphere--so each cloud looks different, more or less.
(The turbulence is even animated, so the clouds 'change' over time. It's very
subtle, though.) BTW, I pre-#declared the raw image_map as a pigment (before the
#while loop) which saves *considerable* time during parsing--similar in concept
to instancing multiple copies of a triangle mesh. So even though each cloud does
get its own 'texture', 600 clouds parse almost as fast as one. Without that
pre-#declare step, the cloud-parsing was *slow* and memory-intensive.

What appears to be self-shadowing under each cloud is actually built into my
image_map artwork--the clouds have a simple finish{ambient 1 diffuse 0} to
faithfully reproduce the image's tone values. (IMO, that image_map still needs
some tweaking--the clouds don't have as much gray-scale detail as I'd like.)

Along the way, I re-discovered something interesting about image_maps and
turbulence: Since I used the typical map_type 0 for projecting the image onto
each sphere, the image naturally shows up on both front and rear surfaces. But
turbulence operates on the image in 3-D space--it's added *after* the
projection, so to speak--so I get two *different* looks on each cloud. Nice!
Since the camera can see some of the rear image through the front one, it adds
'complexity' to each cloud's appearance. Then the animated movement and
motion-blur help give it a quasi-volumetric look. Of course, the front-and-rear
surfaces of each cloud need to remain more or less in line with the camera view.
Otherwise, *distinct* front/back images would be apparent. (Perhaps they still
are!)

Ken

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"Dave Blandston" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> ...we all know that a project of this magnitude
> requires so much thought, planning...

Planning?? :-[

I wish I could YES to that, but...

The scene started out as just a far-less-detailed airplane and the ground. Which
I animated.  "Wow!  Cool!", I thought. I was about ready to sign-off on the
project(!) at that point. (It was just an experiment for my own pleasure.)  Then
I added some clouds--really cheesy ones, just a bozo pigment on another plane.
"Wow! Cool!", I thought. And was about ready to sign-off on *that*!

Then one detail led to another...(and one coding challenge led to another.)

It's quite a mystery that something 'worthwhile' can develop from such a
skeleton-like beginning. Hard to know when to continue or when to stop! Of
course, as such a scene develops, it starts showing the 'holes' that need
filling. Then it becomes a matter of not wanting to post the scene until it
looks 'good enough' to present to the user community. THEN it becomes a matter
of not wanting to post it until it's PERFECT!!!!!!   ;-0

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message 
news:web.4baaf576ae0d85565f302820@news.povray.org...
> "Dre" <and### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
>
>> Holy crap!  Consider me impressed!  Very impressed!!!
>>
>
> Thanks! It was a labor of love--well, sort of, after solving umpteen 
> problems.
> But big scenes are always 'instructive'--I always learn some new things 
> (and
> they really give POV-Ray a workout, clarifying its strengths and 
> weaknesses.)
>
>
>
I've just watched the animation, thats AWESOME!  Really well done!

Cheers Dre

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