Animations by Rolf Simonetta

Soon after making the first succesful computer pictures, I started to experiment also with computer animations. The fourth dimension (Time) brings some new fascinating possiblities into Computer Art. Zone was one of the first computer animations I have made with Turbo Silver. Since then I made many other animations including some commercial logos for companies like "Baumann Kölliker", Blackpoint Video and Magic Camera Productions.

MML-Intro

When the two computer science students Peter W. Simeon and Martin Ruff were working on their diploma thesis at the University of Zurich, they asked me, if I could make an introduction animation for their CD-ROM project. The animation was created on an Amiga 3000 in September 1994, using "Imagine 3.0". The original version consists of 699 frames and lasts about 28 seconds. The last 8 seconds are repetitive. The idea was to let the animation run together with music in an endless loop until the user presses the mouse button to continue the multimedia application. The pictures were rendered on several Amiga computers (Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000 with FPU processors) at video resolution of 720 x 576 with 24 bit. These pictures were then rocorded to video using a DPS PAR 3150 at Blackpoint Video in St. Gallen (Switzerland). A scaled down version was later MPEG encoded for the CD-ROM application. MPEG version (1.7 MByte) of the animation.

Ballo Magico

Every year the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) is organizing a ball called "Polyball". They wanted to produce a commercial to be shown in the cinema. So a member of the organizing committee asked me, if I could make a computer animation. He looked at some pictures I had made before, and finally one of these pictures was the starting point for this computer animation. The animation was created on an Amiga 3000 with the help of Peter W. Simeon in October 1994, using Imagine 2.0. It contains 750 frames and lasts about 30 seconds. The resolution of the pictures was 1024 x 554. The images were transferred directly from digital backup tapes to 35mm film. The commercial was finally shown in 26 cinemas in Zurich. MPEG version (0.5 MByte) of the animation.

Zone II

This version of Zone is a remake of the original Zone animation, which was one of the first computer animations I made. It is still one of my favourite animations and so I decided to make a new version with state of the art technology. This version was rendered for video at a resolution of 720 x 576 with the program Imagine 3.0. Zone II was, together with several other animations and pictures, part of my contribution to the Swiss Computer Art television show which was running on "Schweiz 4" this summer. MPEG version (System Stream, 5.1 MByte) of the animation. Quicktime version (Loop, 0.8 MByte) of the animation.