EMAIL: evilsnack@hotmail.com
NAME: John VanSickle
TOPIC: Technology
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Getting it Online
WEBPAGE:  http://enphilistor.50megs.com/irtc.htm
COUNTRY:  US of A
RENDERER USED:  POV-Ray 3.6.1 for Windows.
TOOLS USED:  Text editor, CMPEG, pencils, paper
HARDWARE USED:  Homebuilt (Athlon XP 2400, 512MB RAM)
CREATION TIME:  About seven weeks.  Final rendering was complete on 21 October
  2006, six days after the deadline.
VIEWING RECOMMENDATION:  Full color, 24 frames per second.
ANIMATION DESCRIPTION:  Modern technology arrives at the Petrified Orchard Valley.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED:

I typed out a bunch of scene code, rendered the frames, and slapped them
together with an MPEG compiler, just like I always do.

New models for this round:
* The sled
* the wireless transceiver
* The touch-screen computer used by Boxer

The shot in which Boxer accesses the video stream from the club is probably the
most complicated job of compositing that I've done so far.  It went like this:

1.  I modeled a scene of a caseless ladybot going around the brass pole in the
strip club.

2.  I rendered four seconds worth of frames at 320x240.

3.  I rendered the same frames a second time at 40x30 (1:8 sampling in both
    directions).

4.  I modeled a masking scene for the parts that are supposed to be digitally
    censored; this mask consisted of the container shape for the part that
    needed to be censored, textured solid white, with nothing else in the scene,
    and a black background.  I animated the container exactly as the uncased
    portion of the caseless ladybot, and animated the camera exactly as in the
    scene modeled in step one.

5.  I rendered the masking scene at 40x30 for four seconds of frames.

6.  I did another scene, in which a small rectangle was textured with a
    pigment equal to A*B+C*(1-A), where A is the 40x30 render of the scene,
    B is the white portion of the mask, and C is the 320x240 render of the
    scene.  This scene also had the titling "www.TheSilverCircuit.xxx" and
    other stuff in it.

7.  I did another scene for the "Buffering..." screen.

8.  The frames from steps 6 and 7 were used as the pigmenting for Boxer's
    computer screen.

If you have any other questions about things, e-mail me directly, or leave
comments on the comments page.