If Only

Member : Stephen

Image description
I don’t know if you have read Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny? In it there is a scene where Shadowjack journeys to the machine at the centre of the world. This is not that machine and its purpose is the exact opposite. But it did start me thinking.

Description of how this image was created
The animation was created completely using Bishop3D it is 600 frames in length and it is the first time I have managed to include sub animations into the main animation. The gears with the connecting chain is an include file of 60 frames which itself has a sub set of the chain drive looped 5 times during the 60 frames. This really cut down the amount of work done in the modeller. To cut away the Earth’s surface I used a SuperEllipsoid to difference a sphere that was differenced by a smaller sphere. The outline of the continents on the framework is a normal map. I did try a couple of methods of stripping away the Earth’s surface using meshes but the CSG method looked the best.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	5
Min. overall rating	:	26 (7 / 12 / 7)
Max. overall rating	:	51 (15 / 18 / 18)
Sum of rating	:	205 / 300
Date uploaded	:	2009-06-10 13:11:05

Specific details Note: The maximum value below is misleading as the voting system has changed. If the member votes for all the entries and has created one him/herself, there is an automatic 20/20/20 score added to the value (This encourages all members who enter to vote).
Rating type	:	Min : Max : Sum : Out of
Artistic	:	7 : 15 : 56 : 100
Concept	:	12 : 18 : 77 : 100
Technical	:	7 : 19 : 72 : 100
Overall	:	26 : 51 : 205 : 300

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   31-08-2009 Been waiting to comment on this. Just can't fault it in any way. The whole thing is just a very nice and well executed animation! 2.   29-08-2009 Great. But it seems to me the textures of the gears are not rotating with them. And a fly-through after it has 'opened' would have made it really impressive. -Ive 3.   28-08-2009 [ThomdeG] Impressive clockwork animation. Well done. I have a bot of a doubt about the stripping of the earth surface, but that is really nitpicking 4.   26-08-2009 I know it's difficult, but the "peeling away" of the earth is too plain CSG; add to it the lack of global illumination, which gives the whole thing a rather outdated appearance. (I'm possibly too much into stills to ignore this.)