About This File
Attending the Colorado Springs, Colorado Lift-Off balloon festival, I noticed that many of the balloon pilots liked to descend and "dip" their gondola in the adjacent lake before resuming their flight. To really do justice to this as a photographer, it would be necessary to be either precisely positioned on shore or in a boat in direct proximity, so I decided to attempt to create a realistic animation using PTE. The last image in this short series shows my animation results. The balloon descends while flying toward the observer, makes a small "splash" as it contacts the rather still lake then with a blast of hot air begins the ascent as the ripples from the splash-down begin to spread. Of course there is the reflection of the descending and ascending balloon in the water as two nearby balloons descend toward the observer. A fun animation to figure out and create....
Improved Splash...