Thanks to everyone whose votes put me into third place.

From ssh### [at] shelbyvisioncom:
> I had to view this several times to understand it. Other than that,
> it's very good.

One of the things that makes Rusty challenging is the limitations I
put on his ability to communicate.  That's the reason the starbots
(the robots seen in "The Passing of the Master") are easier to work
with.

From emp### [at] yahoocom:
> Very unclear when the red screen flashes and there is newspapers. 

The concept of that scene is that Rosie is parroting some propaganda
that she's read elsewhere.  I can see how that didn't come across well.

From ric### [at] brickbotscom:

> Clearly you are a master of POV-Ray... your text file makes it sound
> much easier than I suspect it is!  I understand why you use the dialog
> model that you do, but it did require me to watch it a few times to
> really get the dialog (Esp, the single letter at a time characters),
> and then once more for my feeble mind to bring it all together with
> the action.  

Don't blame yourself; Rusty's communcation method is very obtuse.  It
greatly curtails the things I can have him say, and consequently limits
the stories I can do.

Generic Note:

> I really enjoyed watching these animations, but I personally think
> that pointing out the low points of an animation help more than
> pointing out the high points.  As such, I usually only mention the
> problems.  Please don't take it the wrong way :-)

> Technical:
> Very nice photo-real style.  The motion of the robots was smooth and
> well, robotic, so wholly appropriate :-)  You have nice ease on the
> starts and stops.

I actually have a very simple set of macros for doing smooth motions
like this.  One uses a cosine function for motion from a standing
start to a standing stop; good for most kinds of motion.  For camera
motion I have a slightly different macro that uses 1/(1+exp(-t)),
which has a bit more creep near the ends of the motion range.  I have
a final one for instances when acceleration needs to be smooth (the
motion is determined by a seventh-degree polynomial), but which also
require motion to start and stop at specific times.

> The fades and cross-dissolves are pretty nice, I would have liked a
> bit more detail in your text file about how you did the wavy dissolve
> and the flames. Mainly because I am curious and it was well done.  

The rippling is done with a camera normal (a standard feature of
POV-Ray).  The fades between shots are done by rendering two sets of
frames, one for the "before" shot and one for the "after" shot.  Each
is rendered with the rippling in the original shot.  I have a POV scene
(called fade.pov) which paints a mixture of one frame from each shot
onto a plane, and simply renders a view of that plane.  I can blend
the frames in many ways, including using many of the pigment patterns
to make many kinds of wipes.

> I suppose I should find something to critique :-)  The textures for
> "Joe's Body Shop" and the "National Lumber" building could use more
> 'dirt'.  It adds a lot of interest and realism to use wall textures
> that get dirtier right at the bottom. Actually all of your textures
> are very clean, perfect and flat.

Hey, most of the buildings are brand new.

> The real world is dirty, and has variation,  and your renderings are
> getting pretty close to photo-real, so this may be a way to make it
> that much better.  It is always that last 5% which is the hardest.
> For example a subtle bump or texture map on the asphalt would have
> made it that much more 'real'.

Actually, the asphalt does have a normal applied; however the surface is
never seen from a close enough viewpoint to make a difference.

> Artistic:
> It all looked nice pretty nice.  The subtle movement of the camera
> closer to the subject was a nice touch on the dialog shots.  I
> understand the need to present the robots in a particular way for the
> dialog to work, but I would have liked a bit less pedestrian framing
> for those shots.

The slow camera movement makes a shot look more interesting, although
some of my earlier animations ("Rusty and Boxer's Bogus Adventure")
take this too far; the motion is distracting.
   
> http://www.silverlight.co.uk/tutorials/compose_expose/thirds.html has
> some great composition ideas.

I'm looking at it now.

> I would have made the reflections very much less pronounced for all of
> the robots.  This is largely a personal choice, but I think I spent
> more time than I should have looking at what was reflected rather than
> the robots themselves. 

The reflections are a natural result of the bot's texturing.  But now
with Rosie out of the picture, there's only one robot that reflects
very much.

> Theme:
> For a while I was thinking about the end of a relationship as the
> topic for my animation.  I think it is a nice topic and fits the theme
> well.  I especially like that you tied it into the beginning of the
> next relationship.

I've been wanting to get Rosie and Rusty detached from each other for
some time.

> From irt### [at] yahoocouk:
> There is not much happening here. Too much standing around talking.
> In a story with lasers and a theme of The End of, I would have liked
> some action, like a misfire which cuts someones head off.

I have noted that the Rusty series tends to be dialog-intensive, and
given that talking is the thing Rusty's hardest at, it's probably not
working out well.  Although I have been making Rusty talk faster in
this round than in prior rounds (much of his dialog displays the
letters for 1/4 second each, whereas in earlier entries he always
took 1/2 a second for each letter).

Regards,
John

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