I should release the source eventually.  This image is a test, and I plan on
doing quite a bit more with it to make it longer, more dramatic, and the
explosion more detailed.

The trick is to create a sphere surrounding the planet and use a spherical
density_map (or pigment_map to be faster), which is filled with other
densities (or pigments) so that the outside of the sphere is transparent,
then a small area of fire effect, then finally the black area (which is a
crackle pattern with red trim).  The pigment is then scaled twice as large
as the sphere it's in, and translated so it's just outside the container.
It then is translated to intersect the visible portion of the sphere as the
animation runs.  The 'layers' of the spherical pattern intersect the sphere
and create the patterns on the surface.

This animation is a test done with an emission media, but I now have a
version using pigment because it's faster.  This version also has the
crackle pattern a little messed up because it was done with official POV.  I
figured out that I could have the patterns within the pigment_map stay the
way they were originally writeen by using the reset_children warp in
MegaPOV.

I never read that story by Larry Niven but it sounds like a good one.  The
concept began with a little story idea that I had which is now being ironed
out as the plot of a small group animation project with some people on AOL.
I know Bob is in and probably a few others that hang around here.  It calls
for the destruction of earth, which was supposed to come about through
nuclear was.  I just thought that something like that wouldn't really wipe
everything out completely, so a new weapon would have to exist.  The
appearence is based on the asteroid collision at the beginning of the movie
armegeddon.  What creates it is a little idea that I got from Enders game-
that is, a single bomb that can destroy everything on the surface of a
planet.  I once read a story about the manhatten project and supposedly some
of the scientists feared that the chain reaction might not stop and it would
burn up the whole planet.

-Mike

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