Anim8or Community
Artwork => Finished Works and Works in Progress => Topic started by: Familyman on May 09, 2008, 11:18:04 pm
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here are two little clips from somethign I am working on, tey still need a lot of work, and I mean A LOT!!,,
but I thought I would post what I ahve so far...
Thoughts and comments please..
(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/th_Movie_0007.jpg) (http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/?action=view¤t=Movie_0007.flv)
(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/th_Movie_0002.jpg) (http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/?action=view¤t=Movie_0002.flv)
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That's a nice start you have there. I like your use of terranim8or (I assume).
So here is what I think you could do to improve this:
In the first scene, the movements are smooth and nice, but they're a bit too uniform. Perhaps the radar should stay that way, though perhaps you also want it to rotate slower. The turret I feel should move a bit differently. Perhaps not just side to side, but up and down as well. It would be nice if they didn't necessarily move in unison as well. It's very obvious as a viewer and takes my attention away from the full scene.
As for the second scene, I feel you could speed up the spaceship a lot. I'm not sure what exact effect you're going for, but I doubt the ship would stay flying if it was going that slow. Next, the turning still needs a little work, but it may also be the camera. If you set the camera to have the spaceship as its parent, it will move the same as the ship, but also remember you can stray from this so that it doesn't follow it exactly (once again, following exactly behind would look strange and unattractive to the eye. Right now you have some good smooth camera movement, but it doesn't sync very well with the ship.)
As I said, this is a decent start. I look forward to seeing what you can do!
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...hihosilver just said almost everything i was going to say...
my only other crit was, maybe it would look a bit better if you thinned down the wires on the radar dish. i think the whole cage structure on the front of the dish looks a bit chunky at the moment, but that might just be me, being fussy :P
very good start, though :)
- colclough
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Great work (how cool is Terranim8or, huh!). Couple of suggestions: Maybe it's my monitor but both the vids appear a bit washed out, too bright and not enough contrast. Not sure why this would be, but the starfield background would look much better with higher contrast. Also, the panoramic background seems vertically stretched (or horizontally squished). Maybe fiddle with the background parameters, in particular the High and Low settings (which are reversed in V0.95 by the way, a minor bug. High actually sets the bottom of the image, and Low sets the top).
Other than that, I agree with Hiho and Colclough. It's an excellent start, and I particularly like the Flash Gordon style ship and the alien terrain. Very cool!
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Thanks for all the advise guys,
The ship flying through the landscape needs a lot of work, I am not happy with the first turn that the ship makes, it is very blocky, as for the camera following I will try making the ship its parent and see what that looks like, I was trying to get the feel of the veiwer following the ship not knowing which way the ship was turning so the camera isn't following exactly.
Yes Terranim8or is great, after playing around with it a few times I figured out how to make a trench exactly wher I wanted it to go and it worked perfetly.
As for the Igloo and Radar, after reading your ideas and suggestions I agree that the gun and radar shouldn't follow exactly the same line, The effect I was trying for did't work, so what i am doing now ( I will post a link later) is hving the Radar scanning moving left to right AND up and down now (thanks for the idea), then once the radar has locked on the gun turret moves and locks on to where the radar is aiming.
As for the scenes looking a littel washed is because there is a fog on the igloo scene and that is making it look thatway. I am playing with that a bit, I am wanting to give it a foggy cold wintery feel. Plus with a fog setting the Snowflake look better,, I am finding that without a fog on some frames the light seems to shine and show up the transparant edging of the snowflakes..
I didn't notice the back ground was streched or squoshed but I will change that.
Thanks again to everyone. And stayed tuned...
Glda you like what i have so far and glad you liek the ship.
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ok so here is another render of the igloo with radar and gun turret..
(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/th_igloogunMovie.jpg) (http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/?action=view¤t=igloogunMovie.flv)
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as Captain Jack Sparrow put it: "much more better!" ;D
the colours look waaaaay better in the new vid, and the re-animated radar and gun-turret are much improved. i kinda liked the sideways-blowing snow in the old vid, but the more detailed flakes in the new one are nice.
- colclough
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Ok so this took 10 hours to render, it is only 300 frames (has sounds as well), the total scene will be 800 frames once rendered, Not sure yet how long the whole Animation will b, but it is going to be big.
(http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/th_MovieSoundsTest.jpg) (http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r272/zoro1312/?action=view¤t=MovieSoundsTest.flv)
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10 hours? WHAT? i thinkt you overpolied your scene dude! you should try to make your scene simpler. for instance, the mountains in the background can be rendered to an image, which you will set as background. nobody will see the difference, but you only had to render the mountains once, with same result as now. also, i hope you made the snowhouse and the connection so detailed using textures? cause it looks like you might have modelled all the carvings (the brick carvings, not the dirt.)
one last note: snow falls in the form of snowflakes, and much faster. these are crystals, thats impossible. just make little white dots falling really fast. thats more like a snowstorm.
otherwise, very very nice animation! nice improvement on your old one, too.
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ynow, you could make a whole movie from this.might want to uh... reduce the polygon count because about twelve seconds took 10 hours.maybe just make a movie of some sort and render overnight.a very long night. :)
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10 hours? WHAT? i thinkt you overpolied your scene dude!...
Actually, that works out to only two minutes per frame, which is not really that bad. I've had animations that required individual frame renders of 20 and 30 minutes! And really high-quality frames, with radiosity, can take FAR longer. But, yes, anything you can do to simplify will naturally bring render times down, while sacrificing quality. As the old adage goes, "Ya can't get sumthin' fer nothin'."
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10 hours? WHAT? i thinkt you overpolied your scene dude!...
Actually, that works out to only two minutes per frame, which is not really that bad. I've had animations that required individual frame renders of 20 and 30 minutes! And really high-quality frames, with radiosity, can take FAR longer. But, yes, anything you can do to simplify will naturally bring render times down, while sacrificing quality. As the old adage goes, "Ya can't get sumthin' fer nothin'."
Agreed. So far my record is 55 minutes per frame. Reducing the time would have involved either an unacceptable reduction in model integrity (low poly = game-like appearance) or the removal of shadows, also unacceptable for the particular video.
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one last note: snow falls in the form of snowflakes, and much faster. these are crystals, thats impossible. just make little white dots falling really fast. thats more like a snowstorm.
ah, yes, but this is called artistic licence ;D the complex crystal thingies look cool, therefore they are 'right', even if not 'technically correct'. i mean, when was the last time you saw a real igloo with a radar and machine gun on the roof, anyway?!! :D :D :D
- colclough
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well.... i accept for my animations only render times of about 10 or 20 seconds per frame. with shadows, at MOST one minute per frame. AT MOST. there's ALWAYS a workaround to make the desired effect in a faster way. for example, some of my work, i merge with after effects. after effects renders effects much faster then anim8or (or any 3d program for that matter), so if i divide my render in layers and edit and compose everything in after effects, i could have a scene of 30 seconds, rendered out in maybe half an hour, given the average complexity of say, the video above?
anyway, i don't expect you guys ar using your anim8or in combination with a 2d video program, but i suggest you try it out. and be creative. Familyman, your work is getting better as we go. keep going. i'm expecting more from you :D
P.S.: Familyman, what computer do you have? that might explain a lot :P
i have an AMD64 3700+, 1gb DDR RAM and ASUS motherboard.
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I like this animation, it's really nice beginning!
Don't worry about the render time... In fact 2 minutes per frame is pretty fast... As ENSONIQ5 said, sometimes it takes much longer :-\ Keep it up!
well.... i accept for my animations only render times of about 10 or 20 seconds per frame. with shadows, at MOST one minute per frame. AT MOST. there's ALWAYS a workaround to make the desired effect in a faster way....
I have to disagree. There's not always a way to render faster and get the same result. Especially when you are using ray tracing effects, soft shadows, high quality textures...
Why do you only accept render times of less than one minute? If you spend several days/weeks/months working on a project, it is worth to wait several days for the final render... I hate to say this, but if you never wait, you will probably never create a really nice animation...
One wise man said: "Beauty is hidden in details"
...unfortunately he was right ::) Be patient, that's the point
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I've never rendered a movie: but how do you guys tolerate that? I have no problems waiting overnight, or a full day for a good quality movie, but in my experience Anim8or isn't perfect. I'd always be worried about a sudden crash or something losing all the rendering work I've done.
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Anim8or does rarely crash during rendering if you use the older and more stable version 0.95.
The new preview version crashes time to time... that's life, Steve warned us :P
Of course you never know... I recommend ALWAYS saving your work before you start rendering. And you should also avoid rendering it all at once. You can render it piece by piece and merge it later in a video editing program.
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I also recommend doing a complete quick render with anti aliasing and all shadows turned off, to check there are no little bugs hiding in there (as well as checking your rigging). So far, the only problems I have had with long renders (the longest being around 3 solid weeks) have been related to my electricity supplier rather than Anim8or. A am afraid I tend to just render the whole thing in big lots. Maybe I like to live dangerously! I do, however, stick to V0.95. It has a few issues with UV textures, but it has proven itself very solid. I hear V0.96 is also reliable, with better UV control, however.
I do agree that there are often times when 2D video editing can save huge amounts of time, especially with statiic backgrounds, and even with dynamic effects like explosions. However, there are times when there is no alternative to long renders. Some of my models are necessarily very complex, and the high poly count is necessary for the high quality output I am trying to achieve.
I suppose it is all a matter of balance. Clever shortcuts notwithstanding, if you want quick renders, your output will generally be low quallty and game-like. If you want movie quality renders, be prepared for marathon render times. Hey, you gotta sleep sometime. Your CPU, however, does not!
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I have no problems with the render time, I do do a quick render just to make sure the corner of the camera doesn't go through a mountain or something, and check that everything looks ok. Then just before I go to bed (10pm) I set it to render around 300 frames that means it is done around time of getting up (6.30-7.00am) So that is not a problem, as for changing the snowflakes, I might to a quick render with blobs instead of snowflakes but to be honest I like the snowflakes, I think it works well and is very attractive.
As for the igloo, obviously I modeled that very well, because while yes it does look like I moeled it an Ice block at a time, it is infact just a half sphere with a snow testure on it, I drew a grid on the texture in paint and then placed it on the sphere.
As for the Mountians in the background, I think I will try making that part of the background picture, simple to cut a few seconds off of rendering time, but if the image doens't look right I will not sacrifice the finished product just for a few seconds of render time on each frame, especaily when I only have around 200 more frames (one night of rendering) to go before this scene is finished.
I really appreciate all the comments and advice I do. I may take some of it onboard.
I will be posting the finished scene tomorrow all 800 frames of it.
Thanks again.
jai.
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Well, i've read all your guys posts, and i have to say i do agree at certain points. but the thing with highpoly models...... sometimes its necessary ofcourse, but i can't wait a week before a render finishes. i might render it overnight or so, but not a week.
that reminds me..... how about a contest? a contest where the render time is at most 1 hour? animation, ofcourse. then we'd see if it's really necessary to have long render times, and its a nice challenge!