EMAIL: pterandon@yahoo.com
NAME: Greg M. Johnson
TOPIC: Animation
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Spinach Oil
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/pterandon/index.html
RENDERER USED: Megapov 0.7a
TOOLS USED: 1) Modeller: the Megapov release of "Povray, the raytracer, not a modeller"!
2) CorelDraw 7 for bitmaps
CREATION TIME: about 27 hours
HARDWARE USED: Aptiva Pentium III 1 GHz
VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: None

ANIMATION DESCRIPTION:
Through the story of an altercation in a bar, this animation explores two different philosophies on the use of FORCE.

A) ON ONE HAND

Shawn Hannity, WABC-AM Talk Radio
"The only thing evil understands is overwhelming use of force."
One day he advised a father to encourage his daughter to seek out the bullies in her schoolyard and to bop them.

B) ON THE OTHER HAND

Jesus
"If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo,   Anti-Manichaean Writings, Book XIX
"[S]ince it is sinful to wish to be revenged with an unjust excess, though there is no sin in wishing for revenge within the limits of justice, the man who wishes for no revenge at all is further from the sin of an unjust revenge."

St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople,   Homily XVI.
"Hast thou suffered evil? Do good; thus avenge thee of thine enemy. For if thou shalt go about to resent it, all will blame both thee and him alike. Whereas if thou shall endure it, it will be otherwise. Thee they will applaud and admire; but him they will reproach."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Laureate
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. " 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED:
KNOWN PROBLEM: The movement of the arm in the bystanding drinkers.  I'm sure it's a simple fix, perhaps an extra zero in an arm rotation, but I'm stuck with it, as I'm out of render time. The nine scenes here have each gone through about two dozen rewrites. The animation consists of nine *.POV files with supporting *.INC's.

Before the contest topic was announced for this round, I had completed construction of these blobby figures in povray and had this basic script in mind for the topic of "Transformation" (imagine that!). I believe it's actually a better match for "Force".  The only pre-existing movement file was the algorithm for the one-sided fistfight between our blue hero and the green bully. The algorithms for drinking, walking, and the emotional responses were developed during the contest period.  The same *.INC file is used for both the green bully, blue hero (wimpy & spinach-ized), and some of the red bystanders.

The basic idea for the textures was taken from H.E. Day. I like making figures which invoke feelings of robots and/or Wallace & Gromit's clay construction.  All other work is my own.