3D animator to make 4 short movies for prestigious exhibition, $2k.
by Simon Benjamin
on
Mar 28, 2008 at 4:49:33 pm
I'm looking to employ a talented student or other person willing to work on a modest budget for a high profile project that might be nice for their CV!
I'm a researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK; together with a partner university (Nottingham) we are putting together an exhibit for the Royal Society Summer Exhibition in London (late June/early July this year). Part of the exhibit will be a big plasma screen running movies that illustrate the science we do. I need an animator to make those movies! More details below... if interested, I will need to see examples of your previous work. We have a budget of $2K set aside for animation at this time.
--- More info ---
We will probably want about four short animations, as outlined below. For the ones involving molecular processes, we could just have a 'ball and stick' model for the molecules, or we could use something a bit more 'realistic' like an electronic charge distribution derived from numerical research. But since the audience is basically the public we can keep it simple (remember these animations are to run on a plasma screen as part of an exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition at the end of June -- quite soon!). Some still images that show the kind of models we _could_ opt for are on the (defunct) website
http://www.nanotech.org/?path=Media/sResources/Photo/sLibrary/Molecular/sIm... .
(1) The first thing we would want to show is the formation and distillation of "nitrogen endohedral fullerenes" -- these are cool molecules that are basically C60 (the famous buckyball molecule) with a single atom of nitrogen trapped inside. We write it as N@C60. The way we make it is:
(a) we have an apparatus where a crucible of fullerene power is heated, so that something like a vapour of C60 comes off. Then this vapour is hit by a stream of fast moving (ionised) nitrogen atoms. Most of the nitrogen misses the C60 molecules, and some hit and smash them up, but sometimes a nitrogen atom gets trapped inside. After a capture you could imagine the C60 molecule vibrating frantically and then settling down. In the CGI illustration, what might be really cool is to start from an external view of the apparatus (basically a silver metal vacuum chamber with an extra widget on the side that is the ion gun) and then zoom inside to see the process happening.
(b) It might also be fun to show the process of separating the N@C60 from the empty C60, since this is actually the hard part experimentally. This is done by passing the whole lot through an "HPLC column" which is basically a glass cylinder filled with a certain molecule that has an affinity for C60 and therefore slows it down -- but the N@C60 is slowed down more and thus the N@C60 molecules end up in a different region.
(2) Very quick animation showing the making of "pea pod" nanotubes using our N@C60 from (1) as the "peas". These pea pod nanotubes are just tiny (1 nm diameter) hollow tubes, into which a series of buckyballs get drawn because it is energetically favourable for them to be inside. Basically they stick to the outside of the tube first, and can move around on the outer surface, until they happen to get near the 'mouth' and then they are 'sucked' in.
(3) Another quick animation showing (something like...) a peapod nanotube getting stuck to the surface of a block of material, and then metalic gates being laid down at the ends to form a device. (See attached little image that I grabbed from a picture of the front cover of Science magazine from a while back).
(4) A more substantial animation, which we would need to think through carefully, that attempts to get across the idea of quantum computing taking place inside such a peapod nanotube. Basically the internal state of each N@C60 molecule represents one quantum bit, or qubit, of information. Then we apply pulses of microwave energy and this makes the states spread out and mix.
Re: 3D animator to make 4 short movies for prestigious exhibition, $2k. by Marisa Belluomini on Apr 14, 2008 at 2:36:35 am
Hello!
My name is Marisa and I have recently competed my bachelor of Animation majoring in Maya 3d and special effects. I am currently in my honours year of the animation degree and also have proficient skills in modeling, animating, rigging, lighting and rendering in 3d software as well as compositing skills in after effects and premier.
I am very happy to post my demo reel out to you overnight if you are interested in my services for your project!
Re: 3D animator to make 4 short movies for prestigious exhibition, $2k. by Kristin Nagel on Mar 30, 2008 at 5:29:49 am
Hello, My names Kristin Nagel I'm a recent graduate with a degree in media arts and animation. I specialize in visual effects and compositing but I know how to do much more. Please take a look at work at www.Nagel-Fx.com. If you think I could be of service e-mail me and we can talk details.
