Hello!  Long time, no visit...

Over the past two months*, I've been working on a way to take images drawn by
hand using programs like Sketchbook Pro, Painter, or GIMP, and have POV-Ray
generate real CSG objects out of them, something I refer to as Convergence.
This is in contrast to the way I've done previous hand-drawn animations with
POV-Ray's assistance, where I take my source image and image_map it to a
polygon.  With this method, the images are real CSG objects that can be unioned,
differenced, intersected, etc, just like any other cylinder, sphere, box,
whatever.  Anyway, I've just finished my final proof-of-concept reel, and it's
available for viewing at:

http://vimeo.com/28085508

There are three other test reels that focus more on the 2-D creation process --
animatics, dialog sync, and hand-drawn line art; feel free to visit my blog
(check my sig) to get to the links, if you're so inclined.  There's also one
other film:  my character Three-eyed Larry as a POV-Ray object with the camera
doing a slow orbit of him.  That film is here:

http://vimeo.com/27990034

Like I mentioned, these are all proof-of-concept films, so you'll have to excuse
the lack of a story, sound effects, music, etc.  Still, I'm very excited about
what these films represent, and I'm looking forward to getting something written
and produced using this animation technique.

I'll post a screen shot in the povray.binaries.images forum shortly, in case you
want to get an idea of what it is I did.  Feel free to leave comments here or my
blog.  Thanks!

--
Dan
GoofyGraffix.com
Blog --> http://www.goofygraffix.com/blog/

*In all honesty, I've been thinking about this concept since 2003.  Yes, I'm
moving at the speed of Dan, as the Better Half would say ;)

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Le 25/08/2011 01:13, Dan Byers a écrit :
> Hello!  Long time, no visit...
> 

> There are three other test reels that focus more on the 2-D creation process --
> animatics, dialog sync, and hand-drawn line art; feel free to visit my blog
> (check my sig) to get to the links, if you're so inclined.  There's also one
> other film:  my character Three-eyed Larry as a POV-Ray object with the camera
> doing a slow orbit of him.  That film is here:
> 
> http://vimeo.com/27990034

Great! (that seems to be a very weak word...  Really great!)

As far as shadow is concern, using a box with image map would be no or
little difference in test #5... maybe it's possible to have larry, when
it change orientation from looking left to moving to the right, to in
fact get out of the 2D plan with it's rotating avatar ? (turning it like
a page of book, in 3D)

Another use of the object would be to find some usage for trace() (like
a rain of balls), so as to use the normal of the surface of one
character (I want to see one character pull a toilet-chain, and the
other get flushed with a torrent of bouncing balls... ? maybe not)

sad point: There is no usage of the background.

-- 
Software is like dirt - it costs time and money to change it and move it
around.

Just because you can't see it, it doesn't weigh anything,
and you can't drill a hole in it and stick a rivet into it doesn't mean
it's free.

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This is really excellent! We want to see more of this :-)

Thomas

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You can add my kudos to the list, as well as my interest in seeing more.
Congrats.

Best Regards,
Mike C.

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Dan Byers wrote:

> Hello!  Long time, no visit...

Good to see you are still working on great stupid movies ;)

> Anyway, I've just finished my final proof-of-concept reel

I'm still a bit unsure what I should be seeing. It looks
like you get a 3d effect by extruding the dark contour lines
more than the colored areas, is that right?

What you could also try is to base the cut shapes on a
flattened sphere instead of a box, so you will get some
slight curvature and shading on the solid areas (or, more
ambitiously, use some sort of distance transform to make the
thickness of the shape - for non-contour points - depend on
the 2d distance to the nearest contour point).

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On 25/08/2011 12:13 AM, Dan Byers wrote:
> Hello!  Long time, no visit...

Shame on you. We need some more realism here.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Thanks for all the positive comments :)

Keep in mind the goal of this project was to create a workflow or base process
for taking a stack of hand-drawn animation cels, along with their various
sublayers, and creating POV-Ray objects.  I deliberately kept the objects,
textures, colors, lighting, and camera work dialed down to a plain-Jane level --
it doesn't have to look like a million bucks right now :)  Having established
the process, I can now use it for future animation projects.

Imagine a film where Three-eyed Larry looks like brushed metal, or refracted
glass, or water, or whatever else you can do to a CSG object in POV-Ray.
ANYTHING is possible -- I haven't even begun to scratch the surface...  should
be fun ride ;)

--
Dan
GoofyGraffix.com

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Great to expand the uses of the power of povray.

So are the arms separate objects?

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"gregjohn" <pte### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> So are the arms separate objects?

In this instance, no, but that's not to say they can't ever be.

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On 26-8-2011 4:26, Dan Byers wrote:
> "gregjohn"<pte### [at] yahoocom>  wrote:
>> So are the arms separate objects?
>
> In this instance, no, but that's not to say they can't ever be.
>
>
Imagine: Mister Spider Monster....   :-)

Thomas

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