TITLE: 2999 Gadget Races
NAME: Greg M. Johnson
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: gregj56590@aol.com
WEBPAGE: http://members.xoom.com/gregjohn (not updated in a while, spending toomuch time on this.)

TOPIC: Animations
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: boid2999.mpg
ZIPFILE: boid2999.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Superpatch POV for 3.1a

TOOLS USED: 
    sPatch to model ships; John VanSickle's reorient macro; a sky
pattern inspired by Ken; algorithms inspired by Craig Reynolds;
CorelPhotoPaint7 to make poster.

CREATION TIME: 
    About 2 days

HARDWARE USED: 
    450 MHz Pentium II


ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 

It's a race of flying gadgets where the object is to stay as close as possible
to a red ball that moves in a circular path.  Winner is based on integrated
distance vs. time. Crashing into the spectator tower carries a HEAVY fine.
I was inspired by three great moments in computer animation: "Stella & Stanley"
and "The Temple" from The Mind's Eye, and the scene from Babylon 5 where Londo
Molari looks up and sees a fleet of Shadow ships fly overhead.


VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 

Have great mercy on any freeze frame of the MPG, as it doesn't look as nice as
the moving picture.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 

I came up with a new algorithm for flocking which involves true collision
avoidance. The actors each have a position, velocity, and acceleration at each
frame. The acceleration is towards the red ball, away from each neighbor, and
away from the three towers. These three forces have different strengths, and it
took weeks of tweaking to come up with a nice-looking flyaround.
The sky is just a large scaled sphere where I translate the pigment.  The ocean
is a heightfield with a Superpatch pattern where I translate the pigment. 
The text is not added post render put just translated and reoriented
appropriately. 
Also, there's my old blob human figures in the spectator towers.

I originally envisioned placing the camera in one of the towers and have the
gadgets come fly right at the viewer.  I dropped this idea as it was too hard
to understand what was going on. If I had another week to play around, I would
have tried. 

