Subject: CCL:more on animation

From: Richard Gillilan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:35:31 -0400

Since there has been recent interest in animation,
I thought I'd throw in my 2c. 

We do quite a lot of general scientific animation
here at the Cornell Theory Center. Our main tool
is IBM Visualization Data Explorer (DX). I've written
a few molecular graphics modules which create most
of the constructs I need for biomolecular systems. 
Because DX is so general, it's not as easy
to work with as a dedicated application program
like VMD. Generality can be an advantage when you 
need to do unusual things like have a point 
moving on a colored potential energy surface while a
corresponding molecular model changes its conformation.
A video Paul Bash and I are about to finish has a ball-and-stick
model, ribbon, electron density surfaces and a point on P.E. 
curve all moving while a photon excites the works to a 
higher state. DX, AVS and similar packages are good for 
this kind of thing. We use RenderMan to do high-quality
rendering and special effects when needed. Anyone who
already has DX can download these modules (no cost). 

http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Visualization/Staff/richard/CM/CM.html

Art Olson's group at Scripps may also have some tools like this
for AVS

http://www.scripps.edu/pub/olson-web/

Also, I should mention VPLA, the Visual Programming Language for 
Animation. This was written by Wayne Lytle, a former staff member
here and is also available at no cost:

http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Visualization/Software/VPLA/

It is a VERY nice alternative to SoftImage, Alias and other
unaffordable professional animation programs. I use it whenever
I need nice choreography and special effects in a scene: like
swimming bacteria with bumps and moving cilia and flagella or 
fly-though scenes with fancy camera angles and special lighting 
(like underwater).

Richard Gillilan
Cornell Theory Center
http://www.tc.cornell.edu/~richard/