Subject: Re: Puzzled Puzzle
From: Andrew Hofman <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:23:03 -0800

>Hi everybody!
>
>I just received my March VTU and I was admiring the art galery on pages 82/83
>when I got puzzled by the "Earth Puzzle" image!
>
>OK, first of all, I can't figure out how to put the puzzle pieces in the
>format of the globe. I can think about making a sphere, delete the polygons,
>run a macro to substitute each point for a puzzle piece... But I think the
>pieces will not be at the right place (I didn't try any of this yet).
>
>Now, suppose that I could do the objects... How can I assign the proper earth
>surface to all those pieces?! The inner side is easy (I did it many times),
>but can't think of a quick way (any way!!!) to do it!
>
>Bye,
>/  /   | [email-masked]
>

I went back and took a closer look at the image. Pete Schuermann (the guy
who did it) has pulled a couple of tricks here.

If you look carefully, you will see that all the puzzle pieces are exactly
the same shape. This is always my first clue that a repeating texture has
probably been used, plus the characteristic bump-map "look" this results in
(especially with skinny lines). Boolean was then used to cut out only a few
actual pieces. Since the Booleaned areas don't line up with the bump map,
it's easier to tell this.

Of course, I didn't actually notice this stuff until I went back and had a
second look.

Andy Hofman
LumaQuest Productions           
Animation and Dual Raptor 3 Rendering  
[email-masked]
513-643-7333