POV-Ray is an excessively nifty freeware package for producing high quality ray-traced graphics. I have dabbled with it on-and-off for a while, and produced (what seems like) infinite numbers of unfinished pieces with it, along with a couple of completed items! The "TealSpace" banner logo on the index page of this website was produced using POV-Ray, as were these items:
An experiment in layered textures. The planetary surface in this image is made up of a couple of transparent layers with a bit of fog over the top. Nothing terribly sophisticated here, but I like the way it worked out.
A short animated sequence (140Kb) produced using POV-Ray's animation function. The jerkiness in the animation is a product of the compression, by the way. I figured that a slightly jerky 140Kb file would be better on a website than a lovely smooth crisp 4Mb file.
Before I laid my hands on the animation software I'm now using, I dabbled with stop-motion animation using a webcam and props I found in my study. Here's a couple of examples of the sort of thing I produced. The flickering in the animations is due to the webcam automatically adjusting the exposure in an unpredictable way; if I were to do more stop-motion animations, I think I'd make a point of using manual exposure settings to avoid this problem.
My first attempts were "claymation" style endeavours, using models I made out of Play-Doh. In this one (1032 Kb, 6 secs), Play-Doh-Chris has an unfortunate encounter with a brass cannon (which I made in high school as a metalwork project, lo these many years ago). More astute observers will notice (a) that the "bang!" text is reversed (another webcam-setting problem) and (b) that Play-Doh-Chris is supported by a toothpick stuck up his backside [wince!] I discovered while making this and other Play-Doh models that Play-Doh is not really ideal for animation. Firstly, it's very elastic and thus doesn't hold details very well; and secondly, it tends to collapse without additional means of support. And there's only so far that one can go with toothpick skeletons. Which led me to my next series of attempts...
In an effort to get a model that would stand up by itself, I had a go at animating a Lego robot toy. This is the end result. (1692 Kb, 31 secs) I added the titles using VideoWave. Apart from the unfortunate flickering, I think this one worked ok!
I don't know if or when I'll get back into the stop-motion animation, since I'm concentrating on working with Animation:Master these days. But I have a stack of plasticene squirrelled away in my study ready to build claymation-style models with, if I do decide to have another go.
Hash Animation:Master is a professional quality animation program at a hobbyist price. I've only just started playing with it, so I haven't got anything terribly impressive to put here yet, but these little videos and screen shots are a start. As I acquire more experience in using Animation:Master, I'll be able to put more interesting animations up on this page.
This is my first attempt at producing an animation using Animation:Master. (Here is the high-res 1303Kb version, and here is the low-res 220Kb version.) It runs for a smidgen under 7 seconds, and is pretty basic: I used stock models that came on the A:M CD, along with a set and action that were also supplied with the software. My contribution was to put them together so that they worked, and to supply lighting and camera angles. I also had a lot of fun playing around with different rendering options. This version has the figures rendered "toon style", with outlines. I think it's a nice effect, myself.
This is my next effort (98Kb, 3 seconds) involving models and actions I designed myself. The models are pretty simple - just one and two piece lathed geometric forms, rendered using textures also by moi. The cunning bits in this one were the use of a still photograph as a background, and the way the smaller of the models always points its nifty volumetric headlights at the larger, regardless of other motion it may be performing. Well, *I* thought it was neat! [laugh]
I have a couple of works-in-progress that I'm trying to get looking really good. One of them is a semi-realistic (ie slightly simplified and not-quite-photo-realistic) model of a woman in an evening gown. I've called her Liz, and here are a couple of screen-shots: this is a full-length shot, and this is a close-up of her head and shoulders.
The other work-in-progress is somewhat more "cartoony" style model of an otter. Here is a full-length screenshot, and here is a head-and-shoulders closeup. The otter model has been put on the backburner recently while I continue playing with my Liz model, but I do intend to work on the otter some more when I've got the stuff working with the Liz model that I'm currently trying to figure out.
This is a little video called "PuttyChris Goes for a Walk" (1095 Kb, 4 secs). It is the final result of a lot of learning-how-to-do-stuff and fiddling.
Anyway, the PuttyChris model is in fact a modified version of William Eggington's PuttyDudeMillenium model, and the props were all pinched from the Animation:Master 2000 CD. The walk cycle and the trip action were PuttyDudeMillenium actions that I applied to my PuttyChris model. And because PuttyChris was simply a slimmed-down and re-coloured version of PuttyDudeMillenium (with a new head), the actions worked just fine without the need for much alteration.
It all sounds quite straightforward, but for some reason I had big problems with the walk cycle timing. I think it might have been a glitch of some sort with the software itself, becuase it would work just fine in "quick render" mode and wireframe, but in the final render the timing went haywire. So it took a lot of renders to finally get one that would work ok. I'm not sure what the problem was, because I haven't had that problem with any other PuttyDudeMillenium actions. Perhaps it was a bug that was introduced into that project by a previous A:M update that has been fixed since. I dunno. Anyway, it seems to work just fine now!
I've actually done quite a bit of animation since then. One of these days I'll get around to sorting it all out and linking to it here. Not now, I think. :-)
