jason1025

It depends on the shot. the first shot didnt have AO but it had a lot of models. it took about 16 hours per frame no motion blur. I did the motion blur in AE with real smart motion blur. the 2nd and 3rd shot did not have as many models and lights so I was able to add motion blur in AM, do 64 passes, AO volumetrics, and soft reflections @ 50% quality. took about 8 or 9 hours per frame. The first shot had a bunch of ray trace lights, the 2nd and 3rd had mostly Z buffer with penumbra on.

Funny thing I was super worried about Adobe changing their icons for CS5. As it turns out they did. Get this.. They made their new CS5 icons look like my 3 dimensional icons. They could not have done it better if I had paid them. before they were just 2D so when I created the characters I had to give the depth. LOL what luck or is it? Did I know the future? Did they see my work on the Hash forums?

Did anyone notice the shadow that sweeps across final cut guy? did you get subconsciously that that's what he is reacting to before he runs out of the room? Thats his motivation. Him an AE are confused to where everyone is going. But if that not evident than I didnt do my job. This storyline is why i dont give to much emphasis to "what can Jason do for you" because the narrator will fill that gap while you fallow the mystery. Below is my story board. I have made a bunch of notes and scribbles so be kind. You may also notice that I cut some shots.

By "graphics" do you mean final renders? Thanks for the compliments. I have found that light seems to be one of the keys in both the real world and cg to make interesting shots. I have not used Radiosity yet. I do plan to for at least one shot just to see how cool it looks. The first shots does not have any Ambient occlusion and I feel it lacks a little bit of that tangible quality because of it. I could composite it in after the fact but I have moved on to other shots and besides I don't think its that noticeable. The first 2 shots are 49 passes .45samples for AO, reflection is 45% quality , The 3rd shot got upped to 50% quality on the reflection and 64 passes. I dont think lens flares and volume for the lights are working properly because I added flares to all lights but only one worked. It turned out to look good so I didnt mess with it but if someone wants to test multiple lens flares on multiple lights that would be great. Occasionally frames for no particular resin rendered incorrectly in regards to the flares. Rendering the same frame again on a different system solved the problem. everything was rendered 24p 1920x1080. The third shot had depth of field. I tried using the depth map generated in the 2nd shot via open EXR, but I couldn't get it to work, well give a good result. Back to your original question. Other than my story board I dont have the rest of the shots done. I suppose that would be a better plan of attack but I dont want to burn myself out. I like to get excited about a shot and see it through to fruition. I have about 13 shots left and if I spend a ton of effort doing detailed animatics I fear that I will go to long without rewarding myself with finished shots. Than I will get depressed and burnt out. Kind of strange I know but for my own personal project its my thing. Obviously with a client I would do a story board then rough models, rig, create animatics, then animate the characters then texture, all while getting client approvals along the way. I do not have a large render farm. But I do have about 30 Processors all rendering instances. If I had only tried rendering with one instance it would take at least a year for the three shots I have done to complete rendering. Some frames took 16 hours some took as little as 8 hours to render. I am confident Net Render V16 with its multicore abilities will help me ease my pain. Setting up all the instances takes about 45minutes when you do it the old fashion way.

You bring up good points. In hind site I would have tweaked it to do more of that. The entire one minute piece will be narrated, so I hope that will re iterate the sale of my skills. Although I have the "what can Jason Hampton do for you" up on the monitor its really more of a subliminal in my opinion. I am trying to pack a bunch of detail into the shots and make the piece fast paced intentionally. My hope is that people in the biz, their bosses or people who can recommended me to their bosses will see the piece and want to view it over and over pointing out details like the mac, the Matrox MX02, the Sci fi thing Final cut is editing, the lens flairs, the deformations in the walls, and all the characters/applications represented in my fashion. By the way, I am not selling myself as an Animator,Modeler,Rigger,Texture r, Although the little skills I have are a bonus. I am selling my self as a Director/Producer for small budget shoots, for companies who want soemone who can Produce,Direct,Shoot, Edit, do moderate FX, Color correct, moderate Wed skills, and be self sufficient. The Narrator's pitch will talk about the importance of this in the current economy. My pitch will hinge on how companies can no longer afford to hire "specialists" but instead hiring someone like myself will give the company much more bang for their buck. Obviously I will be trying to get hired by smaller companies who will find this attractive.

No, and its a she. The actresses name is Amazon Beard. She is kind of a Grace Jones but more muscles. That is some footage from a live action short I directed. The lightning was done in AE with stock filters. The first three shots are in sequence. Does it not cut together?

Shot 3 completed 1920x1080 1080Jason_Hampton_CG_presentation_V3.mov 1280x720 JH_CG__V3_email.mov 960x540 960x540Jason_Hampton_CG_presentation_V3.mov

very cool

nice work as usual

wip S5_test030_.mov

I'm afraid it's a bit too much res for my PC to play smoothly so i can't judge the motion , but the renders look real nice. Crapy_low_res_compressed_version.mov The first 2 shots are completed. Took me about 13 days just to render them using 6 computers non stop. I'm sure the HD res is a time eater, but I'm still wondering if the lighting is as efficient as it could be. I am sure you are correct. I am not a master at any of this. At some point I had to just blast the problem with money and buy more machines to render frames faster. I have been doing so much Research and moving forward so slowly that I felt it was time to just get some shots finalized and rendered.

The first 2 shots are completed. Took me about 13 days just to render them using 6 computers non stop. The attached movie is down res from 1080p to 720p to make it easy for download. This is Pre color correction which I will do at the end. I have about 13 shots left to create and Animate. I will add sound effects, score and hire an actor for the narration. The first shot was rendered to TGA file regrettably as they have not proven to hold up in color correction. The 2nd shot was Open EXR. I added motion blur to the first shot using Reel Smart Motion blur plugin for AE. It was a hassle to get an accurate look and I had to learn the ins and outs to yet another program. The 2nd shot used the motion blur built into AM @35%. I think its worth taking the render hit but if you dont have the time RSMB is very fast to render. If AM had a way to export vectors like M@y@ that would help a lot with RSMB. I was hoping to add DOF in AE via the open exr format but it does not work for me as described in video tutorials I will post one frame if some one can figure it out that would be great but for now these shots will not get DOF. Its not that big of loss. Any future shots that will need DOF will get it via AM. Unfortunately the "Fisheye" lens that I used for shot 1 does not seem to be compatible with AM DOF. Not Sure why. This stuff is more work than I ever thought. Makes me respect anyone who is able to complete a project. First2shots.mov S4_P195_69.exr.zip

Thanks Robert

Thank you very much for this valuable information. The time you spent outlining this is not in vain. Thank you again.

Ok now I am excited. Really really excited. AM V16 and a Net Render Multicore. Sold. Set up a pre order on the store, I want to be first in line. This is great news Yoda

In my opinion. It would behoove Hash if AM V16 was and Net Render were one and the same. What an easy way to add a great feature at such a low cost to them. I dont know if there are any plans to make a V16 of AM. Its been at least 3 years now since a full version upgrade so I am guessing there isn't much money behind it. But If they did this even with NO multi core support and were able to make AM V16 a true 64bit program than wow that would be enough for me to fork out $300.00 for a new CD. Even with Net Render only using one core per machine it would be nice to have for small projects because I have 8 systems and for small projects the convenience of only having to set off one instance vs 8, well that would be nice. But like I said not nice enough to shell out $500.00 Jason if your reading this and you want to make an easy sale email me, I will buy Net render right now but I need it at a discount.

Thanks

I think I remember Robert showing off a shader that gave a great aluminum can or record surface look. Does anyone remember the settings?

Net render utilizes one proc from each computer on the network. Basically on your main system you use net render to start rendering a single project. net render uses one proc from every system. I believe one proc from each system is working on its own frame out of the animation. As soon as a particular system is done with its frame it moves on to render the next frame which has not been assigned to another system. Who is Net render for currently? In my opinion its for a user with many systems say 5 or more. Unfortunately Net render needs to be updated to utilize multiple procs from dual, quad or hex core systems. I am not aware of any further development with the product. I feel that because the product is so outdated and can not utilize multiple procs or run multiple instances it is not worth the hefty $500 price tag. I would gladly pay say $100. If you are a school with say 20 or more dusty single core systems then this product is a steal for $500.00

When I purchase my Mac web installers for AM 15 they threw in the PC versions for free. I did request that before buying.

Although I love apple products and they are some of the best products I have ever owned, its probably a good thing they did not get the market share Microsoft got because Steve's ego is huge and he has an attitude of viciously attacking other companies that don't fall into line with what Apple wants. Its very one sided.

I had something I said removed regarding that. I believe AM for the mac is going through some sort of translation and AM for mac is not actually programed for the mac in Apples native language.

I take no credit for these illustrations. I just put them up again.

Here are some nice visual compares AM_Compare_Notes.pdf

Does anyone what the render hit is for soften on? I would test it myself but all systems are rendering.