TITLE: Freedom NAME: Matt Giwer COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: jull43@tampabay.rr.com WEBPAGE: http://www.giwersworld.org/artiv/ & artii/ & artiii/ & artv/ TOPIC: End of COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. MPGFILE: freedom.mpg ZIPFILE: freedom.zip RENDERER USED: povray 3.1g and 3.5 TOOLS USED: gimp, mpeg_encode RENDER TIME: HARDWARE USED: Celeron 400, 64M, linux 2.4.18-3 kernel VIEWING: mplayer and quicktime work, windows media player some versions have trouble, some will not work at all some just do not give the correct playing time. GENERAL INFO: http://www.giwersworld.org/artiv/mpeg.phtml has generic comments on size limited animations. IMAGE DESCRIPTION: End of life. End of rope. This is a take off on two things. The first is a parody by some folk music group I have forgotten on the Ballad of Tom Dooley sung by The Kingston Trio from the 1960s. The second is a story I first remember from a Twilight Zone episode on the man who survives a hanging. I doubt it originated with Rod Serling but that is the oldest version I know. I have no idea of the oldest version of the story. I have seen several in between Serling and today. For better or worse, there is now a Povray animation version. Of course all the versions of the story have required nature, quiet brooks, vistic scenery for the scenes between falling and neck snapping. That is, all the things Povray is not good at unless one counts frame rendering in hours instead of minutes. I took a modest shot at implementing those things. MY VERSION: The traditional gallows scene, climbing the steps, the rope, falling through and swinging. A wind swept flatland that is half of the american Old West setting. The clouds move and the sheet below the gallows ripples in the wind. Then a quick cut to the rope not swinging and standing on his toes. So here you can assume I made a mistake in the animation as the rope is not swinging but you know something is wrong. And he runs away. Depart from here said Grayson Here lies a sinful man When the crowd departed 8 Ball got up and ran That did fit into either the song or the animation but it worked in the parody. First he is in the green hills of Tennessee walking through the flowers with the rainbow sign of hope in the sky. Then he flies through the air in a very unrealistic sequence and lands near a golden stairway to the heavens. OK an escalator into the heavens but it is even less realistic. He arrives at the top, and is pierced by the bright light, the tunnel. He appeals to it but is rejected and falls. He ends swinging from the rope showing the scene of falling through the gallows was correct. THE USUAL: First the lame apology, procrastination put everything off until the last minute. Some intended effects were left out due to the time per frame and working at the last minute. In reference to the sidebar below, this is a trade-off of many things not only technical but of time in days and time of year including the holiday season having to end before I started. Second, I have been criticized for too much and too little material in this section. I am still seeking the Baby Bear, just right, amount of verbiage. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: This implements both a walking and a running algorithm. 8 Ball was given arms for the first time in this one. They are not great arms and rather apish in length but they do add to the ability to express and portray scenes. Neither is very satisfactory but it has only been a year and I have not quit my day job. The whole 8 Ball thing is in a larger context of trying to develop an expressive personality for animations using Povray. In the first animation it was just a pool ball. Later he gained legs and this time arms and expressive eyes at the end of the second to last scene. ZIP file The full lyrics as I remember them. The include file that makes the sheet on the gallows wave in the wind. This was also used in the Nov-Dec 2003 stills competition, Future, for the flag but I forgot to send a zip file for that competition. Credit is contained within the file. For the spotlight scene the media parameters and of particular note the samples values. I am not sure what these mean to Povray but the common meaning varies by the type of scattering. These low values of 3. 10 has no appreciable quality difference from 30, 100 but rendered in one minute vice five minutes per frame. A set of files for the "by the way he's running" scene is included mostly to try to make the zip file contain something. The email address works so if you are interested in something just ask. I have no trade secrets. I am working on a way to create a zip file that will make it easy to include everything needed to recreate an entire animation but not likely something coming before next year this time. For those who have been making the favorable comments on my entries in the last year or so, a bit of an explanation. In each competition I have tried to do something that is new for me rather than simply use things I have used against a straightforward story. Occasionally this comes together with my entry to the Journey competition in early '03. As to why backgrounds are often simple see the link under GENERAL INFO above. Simply the more complex the image including background the larger the mpeg. This is a size limited competition. The size of the image when converted to JPEG, determines the size of the MPEG. The more complex the scene the greater the size of the MPEG. I agree the gross pixelation of some animations does not appear to harm the chances of winning however it bothers me to resort to such methods to reduce the MPEG size. I may overcome my dislike of it. === To the children, a reminder. Etiquette This describes the intentions of the competition and what we hope to gain from it. c. The competition is not about winning. You do not have to be a professional, or even any good! I assure everyone, I am no damn good.