Anim3 – Inspiration

To kick off the visual arts section of the blog, I’ll outline some of the inspiration behind anim3, the third serious animation I’ve started with an intent to release.

First, there is the widely read ‘Le Petit Prince’, or The Little Prince. Specifically, the world he inhabits served as a sort of model to the setting of anim3. However, the plot for anim3 is exceedingly simple (even, I think, compared to the plot of Le Petit Prince): I decided that a convoluted plot a la Elephant’s Dream wouldn’t be as easy to portray, and as this is my first time out on a complex setting/background, I wouldn’t want more complexity than necessary. Maybe anim5 will involve a more complex plot…

Now, for a bit from my past: I first got into CGI and programming* through a little program called Povray, which is a text-based raytracer, which takes some scene description language and renders out a scene, usually made with geometrical primitives. So I was well aware of this image from the Povray hall of fame,  titled Victoria’s World, which is based on another image, Christina’s World. The amount of detail is pretty amazing, but seasoned povray users can quickly pick out several things that mark it as made with povray, such as using an isosurface for the planet surface, the particular highlight patterns in the water,  and the sort of object instantiation in the flowers and birds that povray is good at.

Finally, the last discrete piece of inspiration that I’m going to add right now is a particular scene from Titan AE. I won’t elaborate, since it will be pretty clear what scene I’m talking about once I do finish it.

Well, that’s all for now. If I can focus myself, I’ll figure out how to do the character’s rigging this weekend.

* Technically, I got into programming before povray, probably with TI-83 Basic.