5 frames an hour

5 frames an hour - that's the pace at which my computer rendered the above 1100 frame sequence - so if you're doing the math, that's days. Although I could have adjusted certain render settings and achieved the same result in less time. As it was, I turned off shadows to speed things up a bit. In any case, I'm happy with the post work I did on this - namely the warp effect, very derivative of the Star Trek: The Next Generation main titles. I also took a page out of the JJ Abrams' interpretation of all things Trek, and included a couple of lens flares - the tell-tale sign of an amateur, but hey, it works in some instances.

Miracle grow

Here's a simple PaintFX tree. I animated some of the values such as gravity and texture color. There's tons more fun to be had with other attributes such as turbulence, wind, etc.