








                             T H E  H I T
                           ////////\\\\\\\\
                                    RealTime









                         "Innocence is charming, refreshing... and transitory."


> History
  ^^^^^^^

  The Hit  was originally a 3'28"  short by  Jordi Moragues, done as  the final
  project for  the  Master  in Image  Synthesis and  Computer Animation of  the
  Balearic Islands University.  The short showed  a colourful  and happy mallet
  giving up  to the monotonous rhythm of its cold and metallic neighbours.  The
  idea  was so simple and universal,  that he concentrated  in showing it in an
  energetic and  appealing way, by the use  of the music and  the atmosphere of
  the images.

  He received a  Pixel-INA award at Imagina'94 (Monaco)  among other awards and
  exhibitions  (see the complete list at www.iua.upf.es/~jordi/prods/hit.html).
  Not being too much complex  for today's computers and  also the first spanish
  short to receive an Imagina award,  we decided to do the real time version as
  a tribute to its author,  so we asked him for permission,  and he sent us the
  soundtrack and a videotape.  It was not possible to get the original 3D data,
  so we had to rebuild it all nearly from scratch.


> Technical details
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  The original  short was done  with no  post-production.  After completing the
  storyboard, the whole soundtrack was composed and executed. The recording was
  the basis that  established the timing  of the animation  and the duration of
  each shot.  This way, no more frames than strictly necessary  were generated,
  and each completed shot was  recorded directly on  its final position  on the
  master. It took about four months to complete. Half of that time consisted in
  rendering hammers.

  The  real time version  was done in a similar way.  After rebuilding  all the
  scene,  it was shot according to the video,  using the soundtrack as the main
  basis. A considerable effort was done matching the appearance to the original
  frames,   this  included  simulating  volumetric  lights  and  shadows,   and
  approximating  some other lightning  with simpler light models.  It also took
  about  four months to  complete and  half of that  time was spent  coding the
  engine that  renders  a  pretty same scene  with  about 450  hammers of  1000
  polygons each one in less than 1/30th second.


> Minimum requirements
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  nVidia GeForce series with the latest drivers
  Athlon/P3 750
  64MB RAM
  Windows 98/me/2K/XP


> Known issues
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

  On  MultiMonitor systems,  OpenGL acceleration  is usually  disabled,  so the
  software driver  is used instead.  Please disable  all the  secondary screens
  before running The Hit RealTime.

  The HitRT should run on any OpenGL card, we can't possibly test all cards out
  there so we can't guarantee it will work properly in all configurations.

  Choose a 16bit color buffer to achieve faster frame rates,  or 32bit to avoid
  color bleedings/artifacts.  Some drivers let you use  32bit textures while in
  16bit video mode,  try to enable this option if possible because it gives you
  more speed with reasonable quality.
  

> Full credits
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

> RealTime version

  Programming, Modelling & Animation
  Óscar Fernández  

  Supervision & Textures
  Tony Cabello

  Hardware
  nVidia GeForce

  Software
  Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0
  discreet 3D Studio MAX R3.1
  Adobe Photoshop 5.5
  Ian Luck's BASS 1.3
  Xiphophorus Ogg Vorbis
  Denton Wood's DevIL
  nVidia OpenGL SDK 5.5

  Thanks to
  Jordi Moragues
  Berta Grau
  Sixis Guys
  Oscar Garcia
  Pedro Díaz
  David Notario
  Mikko Mononen
    our parents

  'The Hit' RT (c) 2001 Óscar Fernández & Tony Cabello


> Original version

  Story, Design & Production
  Jordi Moragues

  Hardware
  Silicon Graphics IRIS

  Software
  TDI Explore 3.0.1

  Additional Software
  Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1
  ChromaScan

  Sound & Music
  Jordi Moragues

  Sound Equipment
  Roland W-30 and SoundCanvas
  Sony Digital Audio Tape
  Digidesign ProTools 2.02

  Thanks to
  Juan Montes de Oca
  Ricardo Galli
  Antonio Coca
  Julián Proenza
  Carlos Yániz
  Toni Bibiloni
  Miquel Mascaró
  Tomeu Estrany
  Bel Perelló
  Ignasi Furió

  Special thanks to
  Beatriz Japón
  Xavier Casadesús
  Juan Pablo Buscarini
  Daniel Ruiz
  Natalia Nieto
  Almudena Arístegui

  to my mother.

  'The Hit' (c) 1994 Jordi Moragues


> Contacting the authors
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  Jordi Moragues   http://www.iua.upf.es/~jordi  jordi@iua.upf.es
  Óscar Fernández  http://www.bscener.org        oscarfbg@terra.es
  Tony Cabello     http://www.bscener.org        drkaminumbaone@hotmail.com