## 2. What option 25 shows

- **A speed ramp in three stages:**
  1. **Full speed:** the bot crouches and leaps as a red water balloon drops.
  2. **Ramp down:** in half a second, time slows to 1.2% of normal, right as the balloon bursts on the bot's head.
  3. **Frozen orbit:** for 5.5 seconds the camera circles 360°. It shows 320 hanging droplets, spinning scraps of balloon skin, and an expanding shock ring. Then time ramps back up, the water rains down, and the bot lands.
- **Water keeps the balloon's shape for a moment.** Just after the pop, a see-through water ball hangs where the balloon was, wobbling, before breaking apart. High-speed cameras show real balloons doing exactly this.
- **Drops land as flat splats** and stay on the floor until the loop restarts.

## 3. Experiments

1. **Tick "Show camera rig."** Forty-eight cameras ring the scene, and the one matching the current view glows red. The original effect was shot this way: dozens of still cameras fired at once (or in quick sequence), then played back as a film.
2. **Untick "Auto speed ramp" and drag Time scale.** At ×1, drops are long streaks; at ×0.005, they're crisp beads. The streaks copy camera shutter blur, and slow motion shrinks them.
3. **Drag sideways on the scene** during the frozen moment to add your own orbit.
4. **Untick "Motion streaks."** At full speed the drops look like floating marbles. Blur is what sells speed.

## 4. Less obvious details

- **Bullet time isn't slow motion.** Slow motion is one camera recording fast. Bullet time is many cameras recording the *same instant* from different angles, so the camera can move while time stands still.
- **Why the ramp matters.** Snapping straight to a freeze feels like a pause button. Easing into it lets the audience feel time *thickening*.
- **The shock ring always faces the camera.** It's a flat ring turned toward the viewer every frame (a billboard), so it reads as a burst from any angle during the orbit.
- **Everything still runs slowly during the freeze.** At ×0.012, droplets creep outward a few millimetres. Real "frozen" shots also drift, which keeps them alive.

## Examples

**Real time vs story time**
```
real seconds: 0      0.9   1.4                   6.9   7.5      9
story time:   ━━━━━━━╲____________________________╱━━━━━━━━━
              ×1   ramp↓   ×0.012 (frozen orbit)  ramp↑   ×1
camera:       front  front  0° ────────► 360°     front   front
```

**How it was shot for real**
```
          📷 📷 📷 📷 📷
       📷               📷      all cameras fire at once
     📷      ● bot  💧     📷   → frame 1 = cam 1, frame 2 = cam 2 …
       📷               📷      → the film "moves" around a frozen moment
          📷 📷 📷 📷 📷
```

**Motion streak rule**
```
streak length = 1 + speed × 0.05 × time scale × 6
×1.00  →  ━━━━━●   (long blur)
×0.01  →  ●        (sharp, frozen)
```