ddustin

I talked to the AR guy today. His take on it is both vehicles look like they speed up a few frames before impact. Other than that he likes it. Better fix that perceived speed-up. David

Camera Mapping is where you create a rough geometry the position the camera, and apply a decal through it. But if you are looking for a more clay-mation look, this would probably not work for you. I usually try for realism rather than the style you are trying to create, so I am not a good judge. Good luck, David

Roger, It looks like you minds eye is going in a good direction. If you have a good image of a mountian, you can experiment with a technique called camera mapping. It seems tailor made for your shot. Do a search for it. I am no expert but have toyed with it. If you need help with the trees, we have some good images. David

Shelton, Glad you got it to work. The on-off issue is supposed to be resolved in V13.0c ( I had turned in a report on it too). David

I find myself in awe (actually green with envy) of Stian's abilities. If only............. David

Pssst.... Bjorn, nerds (term of endearment) aren't supposed to hang glide...... We haven't decided. SIGGRAPH is the end of the month so I can't do it then. Guess we should just stick a date on the wall and let everyone weigh in. There were a few new GA users we should try to get involved. We'll also need to try to figure out where to have it. Maybe afterwards we could have a game or two of volleyball (we live between Chattanooga and Atlanta, and have a lighted court). David

Translation: What your fellow forum members are trying to tell you is you really need to work on your spelling and grammar. It can be difficult for forum members (I am not attempting to speak for all) to take you seriously when you use run-on sentences with no punctuation. I know it (your style of writing) is acceptable on gamer sites etc... However, most adults find it irritating, and most who have worked in a professional capacity automatically dismisses your writings as unimportant. There is a spell checker built it to the forum (black check with ABC above it), or you can write your thoughts off-line using a word processor. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. David

Hey, It's been quite a while since we got together for a meeting. Will (zandoriastudios) and I were discussing having one, but maybe driving to Chattanooga this time. That way there could be some others from Knoxville and Nashville that could attend. What Ya'll think???? Atlanta users (A:M that is) could car pool. David

Stian, Will and I were disussing water and the use of animated displacement maps to handle the ocean swells. If it works it would be really neat to test it with your ship. David

The way the accident happened, was the truck was in her lane but was trying to get back in his own lane. As she realized he was in her lane, she applied the brakes and tried to veer out of the way but they collided just over the centerline. We see what the AR dude says, and I'll let you know. David

Here is the version with only a 275 degree rotation on the car. The tail lights are supposed to switch to decals with the brake lights on, but evidently that is broken (think it's fixed in V13.0c) as can see the lights disappear all together. It works in the project file, and there were no errors in NR so I am at a loss. http://www.dustinproductions.com/files/ams...-nw-7-9-06a.m1v Once I get the OK from the AR guy I'll add some parts flying. David EDIT: I just noticed the abrupt stop on the car, so I need to tweak that.

Steve, Check this out... http://www.mossor.org/Desktop/Tutorials/Sp...rite/index.html David

I just talked to the AR guy (he works wierd hours too). He doesn't like the spin any more, and would rather the green car only spin 275 degrees CCW. (I tried to talk him out of this early on). He also wants her to "squirt" over at the last second when she realizes the thruck is in her lane. He wants the truck to be farther over, at the far extents of the green car's lane. Looks like I'll be scrapping a bunch David

Thanks for all the compliments. There are 2 more views that I don't know if I can show. The truck has brake lights that come on, I still need to add them to the green car. This version has a little different motion on the truck which I like better, but there is a wonky "click" on the LF wheel that I have to fix. The truck no longer flies at the beginning. The green car still looks a little like it goes into the road. More tweaky, tweaky..... This was rendered at 1024x768 16 passes, 200 frames in 2 hours using 5 slaves. NR rocks!! Let me know if it plays OK for ya'll, the first part skips when I view it online. http://www.dustinproductions.com/files/ams...-se-7-8-06b.m1v David

Thanks, I think........... translation please.....

Good! We can discuss the subtleties until the cows come home and still be able to pick holes in each other's work, but the bottom line is whether or not the customer's happy. The AR guy is the expert, the lawyer is the customer. Sometimes we get all done, the expert is happy, but the lawyer wants "something else", more drama etc. I was surprised no one noticed the truck not touching the road in the begining of the clip..... Fix, rip, tear, splice.... re-render.... David

A little too much...? [sFX: Stuart slinking away] perhaps..... I did notice other things in the views I rendered out last night. This is one of the phases of these types of the project where I get "animators block", in that I'm not really happy with the chapter and keep tearing it up and starting over. I spoke to the Accident Reconstructionist this morning..... he is initially pleased with what he has seen. Back at it............ David

Here is the latest installment. Modified since the last version: - green car flattens out sooner for a more natural spin - "squirt" of the green car crossing the center line has been mitigated - Hill on left side has been modified to provide a flat area for the truck to drive onto - crumple has been added to truck front end - slowed the spin of the green car too Fixes needed: - The truck looks like it floats after the impact and takes too long to stop. - Left Rear tire on green car goes through pavement. David EDIT: this only took 28 minutes to render on the farm... 720x480 9 passes, 211 frames..... Live action rocks http://www.dustinproductions.com/files/amstuff/pd-7-8-06.m1v

Hey David, if you have any sage advice you'd care to share with the rest of the class... I don't know about sage advice, but I triple check intersections now, double check blind spots, and am constantly do the "what if" scenarios in my head. I try to prepare myself (and even assume it will happen) for the guy running the stop sign, or the person who doesn't see me slowing down for the bike rider. Driving in Atlanta is a challenge all it's own, not unlike any other large city. Atlanta has the highest average driving speed (illegal) of any major city in the US. At least that's what they say in the media. David

We will show a modeled version with the view from her seat, right up till when her view is obstructed by the airbag. David

Bubba, There were 75 feet of "yaw" marks left by the truck, with 60' of them in the green cars lane. The truck driver did "fess up". It is considered a natural reaction to avoid an accident. I don't know what I would have done, but I have to tell you I drive very differently after working on these cases. The driver of the green car was hurt pretty badly, and the driver of the truck wasn't hurt at all. There is a big smear from where her make-up left a track across the air bag.... ouch David

OK. The truck driver was sited for not maintaining his lane and is at fault here. The green car was trying to avoid the truck in Her lane. The speed up of the green car is a bit of an illusion as right now I have her veering quickly and it looks like she speeds up. There are no passengers at this point. No alcohol was involved. The driver of the truck looked away from the road to grab his soda bottle (we need to show the inside of the truck and the bottle rolling off the seat). The truck also ended up more parallel with the road so I am going to adjust it and re-render. (I knew you were all going to get into this ) David

Make sure you are not rendering with fog enabled in your otions. Also make sure you are looking through the camera you want to view your scene from, before you render to file. David Thanks for the comments...I have checked both of those options and they are OK. I can render a tutorial (from the CD), it just won't render after I do a tutorial and try to render it. Can you list all your render settings, that would be a good place to start. David

I agree, the center of mass on the car is spot on. I think I have the truck moving too far off the road, which would cause it have to climb the hill as opposed to coming to rest on the shoulder. Yes, it should level out sooner, but there was a pronounced lean and higher degree of damage on the left side. Agreed (again) that is the same impression I got from it. The car actually goes into the ditch slightly but the motion needs to slow before such an abrupt stop. Thanks for the comments, David None of that looks horribly wrong to me. The only part that I find doesn't ring true is the veering of the green car before the impact - it seems to accelerate once its front wheels have crossed the yellow lines. (But then, maybe it really did that.) Nice lighting - a touch of film grain and blurring (on the vehicles, not the real-world imagery) would really make them blend into the scene. Stuart, It looks like it did accelerate and "squirt" across the intersection, but in reality it was an ubrupt change in direction. The lighting is one of Yves' light rigs and a single sun if you can believe it. I like it a lot and it renders faster than AO. Can I just add film grain to the vehicles without compositing?

Make sure you are not rendering with fog enabled in your otions. Also make sure you are looking through the camera you want to view your scene from, before you render to file. David