largento

Last batch. :-) I've only got two shots to go. One needs to be animated (I'm putting the punchline back on the exploding chicken gag) and the other is the storm-cloud Final. I feel pretty good about having both of them finished tomorrow. Ready to be done. :-) I skipped ahead to the monkey shots since I was in an assembly line rendering mode.

You've done a tremendous amount of work, David! All of it impressive!

More side-by sides: The wedding shots didn't change too much, just got softer. Same with the bookpan. I didn't save the frames from the original part 2, so both of the second shots are "after." Same with these two shots. Just giving them a soft glow. I decided to completely re-do the starship fly-by. Both of these images are from the new one. I made some pretty big changes to the background on this one and used environment maps to give the metallic stuff more interest.

I'd say the cloth simulation is working really well. Cool!

Thanks, Jake! (No offense taken.) :-) I haven't found a reference, Robert, but I can show you the basic idea. Using this Aurora plugin, I'm going to create a background like this: Then I can generate individual clouds like this one: That I can screen over the background. Setting them at different opacity levels and having them move at different speeds, I can simulate a convincing 3D sky in a short amount of time. (I'm working my way shot-thru-shot through the project, so this will be done last.)

Thanks, Ken! It may be a low bar, but that's definitely what I'm trying for. :-)

Have a great birthday!

Thanks, guys! A couple of more shots down! I amped up the color for the characters and made the fog gray. This is my favorite one yet. I re-framed it and most of the look here is in the lighting. That's looking better, Robert. It should be slower to give the clouds scale. My sense of mise en scene would want it moving right-to-left since it's an ominous thing.

Maybe with some heavy blurring, Robert. The small spherical clouds don't sell it very well. I've been crazily working on going scene-by-scene prepping this for the end. As such, I've also been re-rendering scenes and trying things in Photoshop and After Effects to improve them. Truth be told, I could probably do everything in After Effects, but I've been using Photoshop since '93 and I feel more in control when I experiment with it. Here's some side by sides of the scenes I've finished so far. The left is the original render and the right is the "improved." I realize this is something of a subjective nature. This is a new shot I did. It's part of a transition from the Endeavor Comics logo to the Earth spinning on the alien viewscreen and then backing up and over to a console with the message from Greyhawk coming in. I purposely went darker with this to make it moodier. I also think it focuses your attention more on the monitor. A lot of what I've been doing is thinking about contrast. I really like how much more dramatic the new shot feels. I've also been using a gaussian blur on the topmost layer to give the shots a softer "glow." I think it almost gives an SSS feel to the skin. I split this scene into two shots because I didn't have time for the zoom that I tried. I'm using depth of field now and the contrast on the characters (plus the adjusted lighting) really makes them pop off of the background. Originally, I had stuck with the lighting I used in the comic strip, but felt it needed more color. Same with this shot. I also adjusted the fog to allow the secondary characters to be more visible. I hadn't planned on doing so much re-rendering, but I'm liking how they are coming out and think it will be better for having made the effort.

That's certainly nifty, Robert. I'm not sure it would work for a shot like this, though. Maybe composited with other elements? I do like the idea of the sky having some kind of movement, but not so much that it competes with the foreground. My plan is too see if the sky plug-in I'm using ("Aurora") will let me pull out layered 3D clouds with alpha channels. Animating them over the rest of the sky should work to allow for some variation in the movement. I'm thinking more of a horizontal, "dark weather moving in" feel rather than clouds being created.

I think what I've got in mind will work for me, Robert. I'm wanting to finish this in the next few days. I've got another project I'm itching to work on that I can't start until I'm done with this one, which is turning out to be a great motivator. :-) I noticed that colorless thing, too! Somehow the key and fill lights had been rotated down and the rim turned off. I used the original cho I sent you to set them all right again before rendering. I can only guess that the model was only getting some spill from the light blue fill light and maybe the cho realtime view was starting off with the model's actual colors (as if it wasn't being influenced by the lighting) and only displaying the effect of the lighting after a quick render? It stopped happening when I set the lights right. [EDIT] Just saw your last post, Robert. Shirt flapping is way past the level of this. :-)

Boiling would be great. My thought really was just to have some movement in it. Thinking either of just having an image large enough that I can move it in the bg or maybe even do a couple of layers and make them transparent and move them around. The still images worked surprisingly well, so I might just be thinking too much.

The first draft is finished! Whew! It's coming in just under 4 minutes. Unfortunately, I have a laundry list of changes I have to do before I can turn it over to Scott for the final sound. Still, it feels like a major accomplishment! I did the first shot on April 30th, so less than two months! I have the whole place to myself this week, which means no interruptions, so I'm really hoping I can make all the changes and have it off my plate before the end of the week.

Nice solution, Bobby!

Using Newton, it actually simulates gravity. So, you set up your choreography and select which objects will be part of the simulation (as static objects or dynamic objects) and then right-click on the choreography in the PWS and go to: Plug-Ins/Simulate Newton. Then the simulation will run and keyframes will be made for every single frame in the length of the choreography. So, in the first one, I've simulated Newton and this has happened. In the second, I haven't. So you can see how I had everything set prior to running the simulation. Once you've run the simulation, you can re-use it. Simply rotate the triangle by the object in the PWS, so that you can dig down to the Choreography Action folder. Right-click it and select "Export as Action..." Then, you can open a new choreography. Bring in the object and drop the action on it.

It's a great bit of animation and a nice high point for the ending! I rendered it out with a "placeholder" of sorts for the sky and lightning. Turns out my "Aurora" plugin is only for Photoshop and the animatable one is "Aurora Sky" and is for After Effects, so I'm going to have to see what I can do about making a bigger sky and moving it in the background. For this, I just brought it in as a layer and set it up so that it was aimed at the camera. The layer with the lightning is set up the same way, but by accident, I forgot to set it to flat shaded and turn off receive shadows. It turned out to be partly a happy accident since I did the strobing by keying the global ambience. That lit up the layer with the lightning, brightening it. I'll have to do some experimenting, but I think it's going to very cool! Here's a compressed version of it: sail4island_s.mp4

Looks great, Robert! Go ahead and pack up the files and send them over. Much thanks for the help!

Here you go. Same deal. First choreography has the simulation already run, second has everything set up to run. coinroll.prj

Cool, Paul! Is his dangling hair rigged with dynamics?

Here's a project with the basics. I've put two choreographies in here. One has already had Newton simulated (Newton) and one has everything ready to simulate (Setup). spincoin.prj [EDIT] Here's what the pre-simulated cho looks like: coinspin.mp4

Just for fun, I played with just spinning the coin. Here I animated a few key frames to spin the coin around and then the Newton keeps it going for awhile before it comes down. It's a lot of fun just playing around with Newton. coinspin.mov One note: Create your coin model with the center at the center axis.

You could use Newton Simulation and experiment with the results. Here's a quick try. I made a coin model and a ramp. Coin is positioned above the ramp and made a dynamic object (ramp and ground are made static objects). When the simulation runs, the coin drops, hits the ramp, rolls down it and into the view of the camera. I played with changing the kinetic friction and gravity. (I made the kinetic friction .35 and the Y gravity -6.) With a fair amount of trial and error, you might get what you need. cointest.mov

Happy Birthday, Luuk!

You can do it in a choreography. Just click the "show more drivers" symbol next to the item in the project workspace. You can then click down through the Decals folder until you get the image and set keys for the percentage.

Happy Birthday!