omniVERSE wrote:
> 

This is a very impressive clip!

Viewing tip: view it full screen.
It makes the mpeg-artefacts a bit more obvious but also increases the
effect of the animation.

This is (among) the best short POV-animation(s) I have seen sofar.

> I've started in on a try at making a dust storm on Mars:
>  http://members.aol.com/persistenceofv/m_ds-ehc.mpg
> and it's 849KB, a 300 frame 320X240 res. @ 24 fps Mpeg.
> The turbulent "dust" is media using method 2 in MegaPOV patch.  There
> is ground
> fog used for the thickened haze nearer ground level which also grows
> thicker and
> closer as the storm front approaches.
> It's in dire need of better timing (the dust is very fast for it's
> size) and I
> believe it only looks good right now if not scrutinized much.  The
> escaping
> hovercraft has a dust trail which uses a clear container object of
> course for
> it's media and the usual trouble with fog occurs, that being it no
> longer
> remains transparent. So that's a problem to deal with.  To have it
> moving along
> in the wind direction the cone container is just rotated some over the
> course of
> time.

I don't really see the problems you bring up here. The hovercraft isn't
really escaping or running in front of the storm but it obviously runs
away from it diagonally, I imagine with a certain other destination.
The dust storm doesn't seem to go to fast. I have never seen one in real
life, and will probably never see one on Mars (is there such a thing?)
but I thought this looked very convincing.
That is my  reaction to the other things you mentioned here as well:
probably if you study this up close you'll see a couple of things that
may be unrealistic, but on the whole this looks more then acceptable. In
these type of scenes I think realism isn't really an issue, it's more
about effect (FX). The fact that you have the duststorm move in
diagonally, the hovercraft escaping from it also diagonally (in both
ways) gives this a disturbing dynamic feel, which is what this is about.

> I'll be adding a height field or isosurface (more likely) so the
> ground isn't a
> flat plane anymore too.  And with that comes possible use of trace()
> to keep the
> hover craft from hitting the ground, I hope.
> Please use your imagination, you'll need it.

Nope. I have a feeling that the things you want to add here may look
cool in stills but in such a short scene they might be redundant. On the
other hand: YOU are the artist so you decide :)
> 
> Bob
> --
> // omniVERSE
> // http://users.aol.com/inversez/

Remco

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