[Sussex] Example video from povray

[John D.]

Steve Dobson wrote:

>Hi John
>
>On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 03:59:09PM +0100, John D. wrote:
>  
>
>>Ha ha! well done Steve.
>>    
>>
>
>Glad you liked it.  :-)
>
>  
>
>>A slightly "picky" point i.e. not knowing how much time/effort/sweat, 
>>went into that, it seemed that the space crafts "zoomed" toward me at 
>>very high speed. I suppose it's a trick of animation to make them "seem" 
>>slower.
>>    
>>
>
>Well it is meant to be a chase so one would expect to travel fast.  It
>also allowed me to see how "bad" the animation was as there is no motion
>blur.
> 
>  
>
>>Also, I wouldn't have any idea of how complicated the actual animation 
>>is, but it seemed that the file size (my F/F download manager showed it 
>>as 2.5 megs) seemed "quite" large. Given that it runs for about 5 
>>seconds. Is that an "animation" thing or the way that you've "built" it 
>>(I think I mean about the amount of digital info that it's taken to get 
>>the image(s) of that quality)??
>>    
>>
>
>The format is MPEG-2, which is the same used on DVDs.  Not very good
>compression.  When I've figured out how to use mencode I can use a
>better codec that compresses better.
>
>I'm working on a longer animation.  As I currently have a fast(er) computer
>on loan I can render almost quickly (~5 secs per frame).  It has shown up
>that the stars flicker if you move the camera.  Need to find a better method
>of doing the star field.  I've upload the file of the movie so far:
>
>  wget http://pugwash.uthink.co.uk/video/dsv-flyby.mpg
>
>You should like this one a bit more.  The Liberator is moving much slower.
>But be warned.  This file is 8MBytes small.  Just in case you want it the
>md5sum of the file is: 98e45cc6eeeb4ae7ee8c5f874d956488.
>
Another "well done". Good use of detail, etc. Makes it look more like 
"Liberator" travelling somewhere, showing enough of the "ship" but still 
giving the effect of transit.

Erm, not quite sure about that 8 megs file size though, the firefox 
download manager showed it as 16.9, but that wasn't a prob as it showed 
as being downloaded at a mean of 171MB/sec. I suppose that as far as 
format is concerned, it depends what the end product is i.e. aimed 
purely at web presentation or something bigger (sorry, had a look round 
the office and can't find any available rendering farms right now - :D ).

Funny really, as this has "brought home", as to how easy it is to take 
something for granted, easy to view "apparently" simple web animations 
but to forget how much time it takes to produce.

The thing that I often remember, is an interview I read with Joel Veitch 
<http://www.rathergood.com/>. A comment he made, that it'd be nice to do 
"that" kind of stuff all the time, but the 
time/effort/resources/money/etc etc, are finite. Oh and he uses 
proprietary apps - so whether that actually makes "it" easier to do this 
kind of stuff or not, I don't know.

Again, well done. Glasses of "freshly squeezed" OJ all round (though 
perhaps I'd take mine with some tequilla and a splash of Grenadine - Hic!).

John D.