TITLE: Goldbergesque

NAME: Isaiah Eyre
COUNTRY: USA

EMAIL: IsaiahDave@aol.com
WEBPAGE: http://members.aol.com/IsaiahDave, http://prism.cjb.net

TOPIC: Animation - Gadgets and Odd Devices
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
MPGFILE: goldberg.mpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Ray Dream Studio 5


TOOLS USED: 
    Pencils, Papers, Ray Dream Studio 5, sPatch, Paint Shop Pro 4 and 5,
CMPEG, Videotrope


CREATION TIME: 
    50 hours or so to render.. As for creation, I have no idea!


HARDWARE USED: 
    486 DX2 66, 20MB RAM, 540MB HDD, 324MB HDD.


ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: 

This animation was rendered at 160x120 because the rendering was very
slow-going, and anything bigger would have taken way too long. It doesn't look
too bad when it's viewed at double size, though.
I got the idea from the cartoonist inventor, Rube Goldberg, whom I have named my
animation after. Rube Goldberg would illustrate a scene in which there are
several complicated steps taken to accomplish a simple job. I would recommend
that you have a look at www.rube-golberg.com and read more about him.
This is the animation order:  A solar panel gathers energy from light, it sends
electricity to a nearby turntable with a stick and some sandpaper attached to
it. The turntable swings around, strikes the match, lights the fuse, ignites
the cannon, which shoots a cannonball perfectly through a mechanism which drops
another cannonball onto a catapult, and flips a switch on, starting the
hydraulic pump(or pneumatic - don't ask me..I just made it up). The pump forces
down the blade upon the block of cheese, and viola, a nicely sliced piece of
cheese.


VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: 
    Almost anything will work! At least 16-bit color
display, and a computer that is 
faster than mine.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: 

   I started with pencils and papers, which is the best way to get an idea,
since you can't exactly doodle ideas with a 3-D modeler. Some parts of the plan
had to be altered because they would have been too difficult, (or impossible),
to render. 
  
   To start with, I got some basic ideas. I modeled a simple solar panel, which
is in the beginning scene, and then the turntable, wires, match, etc. It would
take too long to explain it all, and anyway I probably don't remember all of
the details anyway. I am especially pleased with the camera movement, as it
follows the electric wires from the panel to the turntable, and the cut between
scenes just as it strikes the match. (The match striking part had to be
modified with Paint Shop Pro to get those little sparks in there)
  
   The fuse burning scene was a hard one to figure out. I tried many different
things to try and get it to look right, but nothing seemed to work. Ray Dream
Studio cannot "burn" an object, and I couldn't shorten the fuse by deleting
extrusion path points throughout the animation timeline (unfortunately).  To
take care of this problem, I rendered the animation WITHOUT the fuse, and then
rendered a still of the fuse itself, exported it as a PSD with a mask in the
alpha channel, brought it into Paint Shop Pro, (and the other frames) cut out
the fuse, pasted it into each frame, gradually shortening it, and drawing a few
sparks around the end. (I did the same thing in the following scene)...only
problem is, the fuse doesn't cast a shadow.

   The next scene took lots of planning, modeling, and ideas. I modeled a
cannon, a table, a cutting board, two hydraulic ( or penumatic - you decide! )
cylinders, several pipes, wires, a blade, some cheese, and an elaborate "Pump"
which is just a bunch of mechanical-looking shapes placed randomly inside a
metal frame. Looks convincing, doesn't it? (Maybe I should've had it vibrate
when it was turned on, huh?)
  The cannonball was placed inside the back of the cannon, and by timing it
correctly, I made the camera shake, and the hanging light swing wildly when the
cannon fired. (I also added a little motion blur to the cannonball when it came
out)

  After all that, I started a new file, in which I modeled the contraption with
the catapult and the lightswitch, etc. It was hard getting everything right,
even though it was made mostly of primitives (cubes).
I had the cannonball fire straight through the space in this assembly, knock
down a hinged board, which dropped another ball onto a catapult which flips on
the power switch to the pump thingy.
Then, once again, I used the technique of following the wires from the origin to
the destination, where you can get a glimpse of the pump, (This scene took
about 30 hours to render alone..Do I get extra credit for patience?)
If you look carefully, there are two clamps attached to the power contacts on
the pump, which the wires are attached to.  Then I closed in on the table,
where the blade comes down and makes a very nice sliced piece of cheddar
cheese! (Now all I need is a hamburger creating device)

Please send comments to IsaiahDave@aol.com. More Ray Dream Studio information
can be found at www.raydream.com, and I also have a tutorial page at
http://members.aol.com/IsaiahDave/raydream
Thank you!

Isaiah