turning dreams into datafiles
I've been playing around with the freeware version of 3D Canvas by Amabilis software. I've only used it a little bit, but by following the examples and tutorial in their online help utility, I have been able to turn out some amazing results on my very first tries. 3D animation is very simple and intuitive in 3D Canvas. Even such things as animated characters are easy to put together. I have long been looking for software that could simulate my snakebots in action, along with a number of other ideas. Now I can model and animate them and make AVI or GIF files of my ideas.
Last night, I downloaded Mercator maps of the earth and the moon. With a couple of clicks, I had two spheres, and a few clicks later they were painted with the Mercator maps: instant 3D models of the earth and moon. Through a little experimentation I was able to put a few ten second movies together, of flights from the earth to the moon. I also made a simple wheel-shaped space station, and have a movie of that rotating, with the camera flying around and beyond it, and another movie of a simple spaceship taking off.
There is still a lot for me to learn (particularly about lighting), but the basics were surprisingly easy to learn. I think that in the not-too-distant future I will be able to augment my essays with animations illustrating various points. Given the tools I have right now (3D Canvas, POVRay, Mathematica, Fruityloops, Virtual Dub), I could probably make a feature-length animated movie, if I had desire and reason to do so.
"the fantastic adventures of Robot Guy..."
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