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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

chris

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Posts posted by chris

  1. I figured out the weird hair render... FINALLY... it was the DOF being turned "ON", it creates those artifacts. But it looks like the lighting settings in this project don't have any different effect on the shininess of the hair though.

     

    Hair%20Normal.png

     

    If anyone has thoughts as to the shininess here are my settings for the two hair emitters:

    Hair%20Settings1.png

     

    Hair%20Settings2.png

  2. I've always been really impressed by the TOYS project (Buzz LightYear) that comes on the Hash CD. The scene looks great and renders incredibly fast, it's just so professional. In an attempt to try and improve my own scene building techniques as well as understanding some of the lighting types and options I've started to tear apart this scene, really studying the lighting choices and settings, as well as making some of my own changes (note in the image below the change in DOF).

     

    As part of my testing I removed the Buzz, spaceship and Binocular models and replace them with my bear model to see how it renders in the scene. My first render had something weird happened with the fur and was wondering if anyone can explain what I'm seeing. Any thoughts?!?

     

    Lighting%20Test.png

  3. Thanks Wegg. I'm still working on the hair. As mentioned I already have specular intensity down to 0.25% but it's still coming out quite shiny, I have a few other settings in mind but haven't had time to try them yet... I'll post the results if they turn out ok once I've had a chance to try them.

     

    I'd try 5%.

     

    That's 4.75% brighter than I have it now, you're going the wrong way. :P

     

    Just so you know the Bear I am modeling it after is quite shiny... shinier than the one you found appears, however I've found that when my son's teddy bear is photographed using a flash the specular shine becomes so focussed (due to thee intense focussed light source, i.e. the flash) that it doesn't look as shiny as it does to the naked eye.

     

    I think your eyes may be getting bedazzled by the hair fibers reacting differently between your eyeballs. Close one eye. . . then the other while your looking at it. Often things with fine detail like that really draw your eye and make you think they are far more intense than they really are. Also try photographing it in a well lit room without any flash. I think you'll be surprised.

     

    My daughter has a scarf made out of that super shiny/soft fiber material. Crazy stuff.

     

    Yes, I understand what you are talking about. I have been looking at it with one eye (I do that a lot when I evaluate things). All I was saying was that my son's bear appears shinier than the one you posted, I wasn't saying it was as shiny as the bear I modeled. Actually I totally agree with you, my modeled bear's fur is WAY too shiny, but since I already have specular intensity down to a 1/4 of a percent I am not sure I am going to get it to the same level as the real bear... but I'm going to try! And I have a few ideas to get me there. ;)

     

    I'll post when I've made the change. Thanks for the thoughtful responses Wegg, I appreciate them. :)

  4. Thanks Wegg. I'm still working on the hair. As mentioned I already have specular intensity down to 0.25% but it's still coming out quite shiny, I have a few other settings in mind but haven't had time to try them yet... I'll post the results if they turn out ok once I've had a chance to try them.

     

    Just so you know the Bear I am modeling it after is quite shiny... shinier than the one you found appears, however I've found that when my son's teddy bear is photographed using a flash the specular shine becomes so focussed (due to thee intense focussed light source, i.e. the flash) that it doesn't look as shiny as it does to the naked eye.

  5. Below is the other scene I've been working on, this scene is also not finished yet.

    1. Bear will be rigged and posed to be looking up at the moon.
    2. Bear will be holding a toy rocket ship in his hand.
    3. The white cylinder is a place holder for a soon to be modeled telescope.
    4. Bear will be standing on a hardwood floor.
    5. There will be a wall and a light reflection of the telescope in the window.

    Space_Bear.png

  6. Here is a test render of an unfinished still shot.

     

    Butterfly_Bear.png

     

    Once the Bear is rigged I plan to have him in a running pose and holding a butterfly net while chasing a butterfly a short distance in front of him. A second butterfly will be sitting on one of the daisies in the foreground. Some of the smaller additions will be more leaves on the daisy plant some variation in the petals and some alterations to it's bump maps for a little more realism. There will also be a few more daisy plants on the hillside as a finishing touch.

  7. I'd say its a bit too shiny and the hair is too uniform in length but it is quite nice. Well done.

     

    Thanks everyone for the kind words. I agree Wegg it's a little shinier that I intended, I may bring it down a bit further but specular intensity is already at 0.25% and the specular colour is also kind of a medium light tope colour to take some of the edginess of the sheen away. Also the hair is combed all over the place too and has a 10% variation in length in the one particle emitter and a slightly shorter length with another 10% variation in the second particle emitter. I may try to widen the hair length variation a bit more maybe to 15% or so and drop to specular intensity to 0.20% or 0.15%, we'll see, but overall it's getting pretty close to the look of my son's real Teddy bear that I modeled it after.

     

    A couple more adjustements and I'll try placing him into the scene I'm creating for him. In the image He's standing in a grassy field catching butterflies... and yes the grass it more particle hair. I've tested it it takes a long time to render but it looks gorgeous... I'll post my next render so you can all see the progress I'm making as I go along.

     

    Thanks for the input everyone!

     

    Please, anyone else, feel free to comment!

  8. Hi all,

     

    Thanks again to those that helped trouble shoot the problems I was having with the shaders the other day. Now that it's working I was able to find time tonight to tweak some settings and get it MUCH closer to the look I was going for. Some of you may remember this model from a few years ago when I first created it, I'm really excited to be getting back into working with it again.

     

    Below is a screen shot of the new and MUCH improved look. Let me know what you think! I've also included a wire frame shot as well.

    Bear_Finished.png

     

    Bear_Wire.png

     

    Now for a little more trouble shooting, it looks as though I have a strange thing happening with one of the guide hairs. You can see the anomaly quite well in the finished render above on the bear's right foot and also in the wireframe shot below, the one guide hair (though it shows up as a different colour than the other guide hairs) on the leg does have any control points on it and so sticks straight out. Any thoughts?!?

     

    Problem_Hair.png

  9. Currently I'm just planning to use it in stills. Actually though there are very few if any 3 or 5 point patches in this model if I remember from when I built it. I'd have to go home and check it over but I have no plans to animate him yet... though I will be rigging him because I may eventually use him in a book or something and it would certainly be easier to pose if he was rigged.

  10. THANK-YOU ALL!

     

    That was it! Shaders was turned OFF in render settings, I can't believe I forgot about that.

     

    Below is my first test on the Bear with Shaders turned ON in render settings, much better but still some tweaking needed.

     

    Bear_newhair.jpg

     

    This was rendered with Muhair, and yes robcat2075 I have been testing it on something other than the Bear, both on a single patch and also on a "fur ball". ;)

     

    Thanks again.

  11. Hello All,

     

    Oh man it has been a LONG time (over a year I think) since I'm visited here. I haven't had much time in the last few years to spend much energy/time in 3D but I'm making an effort to get back into it. Man I missed it! :) Anyway, I've started by trying to finish off a few projects that I left unfinished, in doing so I have run into a few issues between the way certain features work back in version 11 through 12.5 and version 14.0c which I am currently using. (Until I know I'm going to have the time and be able to stick with it I wasn't planning on upgrading to version 15 yet as there are changes in the way subscriptions work now.)

     

    OK I will post 2 renders the first is a link to a file I had rendered back in version 12 I think. Notice the definition in the hair, the variation in colour, the sheen. It didn't seem to matter what lighting I put that hair under it always looked really nice.

     

    Bear_Chor.jpg

     

    Now look at my best attempt in version 14.0c. I've played with so many settings and just can't get anything but a flat look no matter what I try. I've tried different shaders too (including Kajiya-Kay which I understand was the old version 12 default shader), but still can't seem to find the right mix. Please try not to mind that it was rendered in the modeling window, it renders almost identically in the Choreography window.

     

    Bear(new%20hair).jpg

     

    Unfortunately I don't have the original fur material from the first render as the file was accidentally and unfortunately saved over with the current version material and has MANY settings changed by now so I can't even tell you what settings I had anymore in the first render. But I can tell you that it didn't look the same when I first imported it into version 14 the first time, I remember that!

     

    The thing is I'm not looking to find the exact settings, I just am trying to find out how to get the control over the look of the hair I found so easy back in version 12(ish). It almost doesn't even look like the same bear. I know the hair system is WAY better now, I just can't seem to figure out how to get a handle on the settings. CAN ANYONE HELP! PLEASE!!!

     

    Thanks.

  12. Hey all, it's been quite a while since I've posted any progress on this project. I have been working on it every now then when I get the opportunity. Though now that my son has arrived (Ethan Christopher Wilms - Born April 1, 2005) I suppose I will have to try and find more time to get the final renders done that I was originally planning. ;)

     

    Somehow having a new born and finding time don't really go together very well. :P

     

    Anyway here is a link to a short anim of the model spinning.

    Teddy Spinning

  13. Actually Gary, I just found that EggSlice does work with version 10.x according to the documentation included in it's demo download. You can find it here: Dan Shimmyo's Personal Site

     

     

    Quote from Documentation:

     

    v. 1.05 : September 1, 2003

     

    -- Added support for A:M v10.x

     

     

    I haven't had time to test the demo and read through the help file and won't for a few days yet, if anyone has tried it in version 11 and knows if it works could you let us know? Thanks!

  14. I would follow Ken's advice and work in a 1:1 ratio. Scale up your model in the modeling window to the size you want him using the rulers as guides, then set you hair to look the way you want it and import into the choreography.

     

    I've been working using hair a lot lately and have had no trouble with the hair misbehaving when following this strategy.

  15. I personally like the one with a lot of role. But as mentioned the roll doesn't quite match the rest of the camera movement. Might I suggest doing a search on google for some hanging roller coaster footage. It may help you get the feeling of movement you're after. Looking awesome though!!! Very nice idea!

  16. OK, I pulled him into the Choreography and replaced the lights with raytraced bulbs instead of the default lighting. The default lighting had been giving me problem with crashing on render-to-file. I'll submit a bug report shortly on this. I am very happy with the fur look overall, but I am getting some strange dark areas in the fur that I can't fully explain, take a look:

     

    Bear_Chor.jpg

     

     

    The lights are located over the left and right shoulders of the camera at about a 45 degree angle so should hit the fur in a way not to create any shadows. In the modelling window the fur renders much closer to what I'm looking for, could it be because the light comes from the same direction as the camera? Maybe I'll try a render in the Choreography with a light in the position that camera is in and see how that goes. Would there be a way to only have the bears fur (or just the bear) pick up the lighting from that light somehow and not effect the rest of the scene?

  17. Thanks for all the great feedback and suggestions about my bear, I really appreciate them!!

     

    Well Paul, I don't want to give away the exact settings I used just yet (secret recipe and all ;) ) but the hair material has a density of 450+ by using two slightly different hair emitters.

     

    John, I did delete the default lighting and am slowly adding lights and playing with settings to try and find what specifically causes the crash and what I can get away with. Good tip, thanks! Because it's ultimately going for print I can't reduce the render size, in fact it needs to be bigger ...much bigger. :(

     

    Colin, thanks for the suggestions. I would really like to make the current hair material work if it can be done. The bear will be the main focus of every render and will be very close to the camera in a number of the shots so I would like the detail to be there. I did originally have fewer/thicker hairs but it just didn't have the look of the real teddy bear I am modeling it after. The material I have on it now is very close. I will try that texture under the fur suggestion though to mask the bald spots. Thanks also for the Fur project I did have a look at them.

     

    I am still a little confused about why it's crashing I have 1 Gig of RAM and 8GB (two separate partitions) worth of Virtual memory. The amusing thing is I can vary the virtual memory setting to anything and it crashes in the same amount of time... which makes me think it's not even getting to the point of using the Virtual Memory. I also made note the last time it crashed the hard drive light never came on at all. Hmmm interesting...

     

    Without shadows the bear takes about 15min to render. I am not concerned about render times at all, this thing could take 2days to render a finished still scene when I'm done and I would be ok with that. But I just want to solve this crashing issue. Any suggestions? Should I contact Hash about this one?

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