EMAIL:  Colin@Theys.net
NAME:   Colin Theys
TOPIC:  Forces of Nature

COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.

TITLE:			Forces of Nature
COUNTRY:		USA
WEBPAGE:		www.ctfilms.org
RENDERER USED:		Realsoft 3d v4.2
TOOLS USED:		Realsoft 3d v4.2, Photoshop, Premier, TMPGEnc, AVISynth, Terragen
CREATION TIME:		I'd really rather not think about it...
HARDWARE USED:		PIII 667 with Matrox G450 Dual Head. 256MB 133mhz ram +(Athlon 1ghz network-render box)
VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS:
	Pay attention.

NOTE:			I would have loved to include a zip file, but the files are simply too large. ( >2GB)  If anyone would like to see any files from the animation, I'll be glad to accommodate you.  I learned how to use this stuff by looking at other people's work, so I appreciate the value of "open-source" projects).

ANIMATION DESCRIPTION:

	I started this rather ambitious project about a week into the competition period and storyboarded about a three minute animation.  Unfortunately, school prevented me from finishing it by the deadline, so I'm submitting it as a "to be continued...".  It will also have sound.

	I was trying to think of what could be a powerful yet funny "force of nature" that wouldn't look truly pathetic when I tried to model it and came up with the idea of a little old lady.  You know the type.  There are some little old ladies that really are "forces of nature" in their own right.  In this animation, I pit a little old lady against a tornado.  I had a lot of fun storyboarding it and I hope it's as much fun to watch.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED:

	This was only my second animation ever and the first to include a human, or even a skeleton for that matter, not to mention the first animation I've ever done in Realsoft.  In hindsight, it was a rather ambitious project, which is why I didn't finish it.  I created all the main models independently using a common coordinate system and combined them together into scene files as needed for each sequence.  Many of the models were pre-animated (i.e.  I animated the lady rocking in the chair and simply imported the file to any given scene to add a rocking lady.)
	I spent about a week doing all the modeling, texturing, and setup, and the rest of the time doing animation.  The skeleton was particularly tricky since the skeletal system in 4.2 is "hardly perfect" and is incredibly prone to seemingly random distortions, etc..
	The house was done using fluid dynamics and about 6 fans making fly-by sweeps.  The crash was painstakingly key framed.  The tornado was done by animating a huge hierarchy of groups containing a lathed tornado-thing.  Textures were mapped over it in about 8 layers.  That took some doing.  I do not plan to animate another tornado this way.

CREDIT WHERE DUE:
	-The truck as viewed from a distance was a model from 3dCafe.  (The crashing truck was home-made.)
	-The sky texture dome (not the lightning sky,) was from Marlin Studios.