|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Train Animation
|
This is a 5 minute animation of a desert locomotive I created using the 3d animation
program Maya.
Some viewer appreciative
comments on this animation are posted here.
|
If you have a slower connection, or just want to be able to play this Maya animation
directly on your computer rather than playing it over the Internet, you can download
the files manually. This can be done on most browsers by clicking the right mouse
button on the links below and choosing "Save target as".
Kelso
Train Animation 2 s3.mov
Kelso
Train Animation 2 s3 Small.mov
There are also
two postings on youtube, an original here,
and a higher resolution one here.
Though all visual content in this animation is subject to copyright, use is
unrestricted for personal viewing. Commercial use of imagry without prior written
consent is prohibited. In other words, distribution and use is only ok as long as it
is distributed for free and only for individual personal viewing. Your firm or
corporation can use it too if I'm contacted first and we come to an agreement. :-)
|
~~~
Why make this animation?
Several years ago, I went on a camping trip
with my brother Phil, who recalled a fond memory of a remote valley in the Mojave
Desert of southeastern California.
He described massive freight trains
being hauled by relentless, muscling locomotives in the searing, radiant heat of summer, where
nearby Death Valley temperatures are commonly above 110 degrees.
We decided to detour and visit this isolated terrain. The valley is a vast, bleak, moribund pool of
sand; a concave depression guarded by the Providence Mountains, whose lifeless brown peaks join
together and conspire like kilns to trap every last ray of heat and blast them back down upon the
defenseless, oven-like surface below.
It is Nature's Bowl of Torture. As one cruises through the stark, burning solitude, the baking heat of
the sun and stereophonic silence of the desert are occasionally shattered by the roaring thunder of
locomotive giants.
We had the good luck to end up driving alongside one of these meandering snakes of alien steel: five Union Pacific diesels, laden with an ungodly amount of military
hardware, as they groaned through the valley on their way to the abandoned Union
Pacific Depot in Kelso,
California.
At once both abjectly servile and unforgiving, these pounding machines strain incessantly to defy
megatons of resistance with their inexorable might, obediently trekking with nonnegotiable attitude
along the scorching furnace of the desert floor.
The power of these locomotives is both reassuring and intimidating. You have to see them for yourself.
Between the locomotives and the crews that operate them, one thing is assured: Things are getting
done. No whining. Let's go. Want to go somewhere a bit cooler? Hop on up then, but hurry... we're
leaving now.
And if you're listening to Peter Gabriel's
'Passion' (details in link below) while driving through the desert, you'll start seeing things too. I
was, and before I knew it, I had this animation mapped out to the soundtrack "Of these, hope" from
'Passion'.
It's not finished - I don't think it ever
will be. I've not even had time yet to put the engineer in. That and many other improvements will have
to wait to appear in Kelso Locomotive Animation III.
Oh, and turn the volume up or you
won't get it. :-)
-Peter
Technical notes on this animation are here.
Feedback & suggestions welcome; E-mail
here.
|
|
|
