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Prima Luce

Dawn of the new rendering hardware

This is the first published video that was generated on the new quad-core Core2 system. I wanted something relatively easy computationally but visually appealing and a little different. I chose to zoom in to a series of tips of the spikes in the region called "utter west" (or the spike/antenna). Unlike most animations I've done in this area, this one does not use the distance estimator, and is configured to completely remove the dwell bands. As a result the fibers connecting the mini-sets are almost invisible. This creates a minimalist effect of a slowly morphing gradient with a small number of very smooth fine lines crossing the visual field.

Update Nov 2010: This project was rendered again from scratch on the new Core i7-980X system at 1600x900 resolution. See PrimaLuce2.

Comments

Video Format

This is also the first video I have published in MPEG-4 H.264/AVC format. You will need QuickTime to view it (or something else with an appropriate codec). I am impressed with the quality and file size and may use this format for all future works. On the Technical Info - Encoding page I write more about this.

Title

The name of this animation is Latin for "first dawn" (thanks to Uma Kundu for the suggestion). It refers to the phrase astronomers use for the first time they look at the night sky with a new telescope -- "first light" (unfortunately the Latin for that is the name of a brand of cheap cigarettes).