KNBits

Nice stuff indeed. You use gel maps? Yep. This is why that kind of visualisation process is quite limited, and kind of dead end process. The specialized lighting software are getting more and more versatile to output that kind of images directly from the data that will also eventually run the show. Of course they don't have all the bells and whistles of A:M to create nice looking renders, but it isn't usually nessessary for visualisation purpose. I'm not saying that your work is useless gra4mac, not at all. I used to do the same kind of stuff using A:M and it was quite useful in my work, let alone all the stuff your learn from it. But eventually the limitations make it hard to justify all the time required for this. I guess that if you build a library, it'll get less time consuming to create scenes like this for new shows. BTW, the ROSCO site is full of cookie you can use as reference to put gel in your lights. And if you need a Roboscan model, I have one somewhere. Just PM me. Good work.

Sweet looking! Clean and efficient. We don't see uch of this kind of stuff done with A:M. Congratulation!

Very nice. Some imperfections yes (the one above the front left tire is the a bit distracting on the side render), but overall a nice feeling. Thxs for sharing wireframe

The pixelation cannot comes directly from the Mini setting. I think either you scale it after to fit the "1.5in high and 2.5in wide" you want, or you use a compressor with inadequate settings. Are you rendering a still or a movie clip? One thing about the "1.5in high and 2.5in wide". This is relative to your monitor. Let's say I have a monitor 20inch wide, and that I run this monitor at 1600 X 1200 resolution. To get the 2.5inch wide, I will have to render my clip at 200 pixel wide (2.5 X 1600 / 20). Of course, if another user see that same clip on the same 20inch wide monitor, but his monitor resolution is set to 800 X 600, then the clip will appear 5inch wide to him. On MY monitor, with MY resolution setting, what you ask would be something like 200 X 120 (width X height). I guess it would look about 2.5in wide X 1.5n high for a lot of people at that rez. Working with inch for render that goes on screen is a bit counter-intuitive though.

Recent version of A:M export directly to Jpeg in Render Settings. With older ones, you'll need another application to convert TGA to JPEG after your render. There are some free app to do that easily

There is different ways to achieve this, depending on how control you want and how complex the cam movement is. What is pretty sure is that you'll have to use Constraints. Read about the different type of constraints that A:M offer, especially Aim At, Path, Translate and Orient Like constraints. Those are very powerfull tool. Once you figure out the tools, build something like this will be easy. Let us know.

Flash isn't a size reduction application in itself. The low size/quick loading time you usually see from Flash media is due to the vector based graphics. However, like John Bigboote said, tracing pixels from AVI and convert them to vector won't reduce size most of the time because it will take too much mathematic vector to trace an image correctly. That of course depend on the visual nature of your video, some trace very well visually and the size reduction worth it, but most don't. Bringing your AVI in Flash as video is another option that has greatly improve with Flash 8, but then the size/quality trade off reality of all other video application like WMP, Quicktime or Real apply here as well. Flash On2 codec is very good for decent quality at fairly low size, but it doesn't do magic compare to other media player. If all you want is to put video on the web at the lower size/best quality possible, you'll have to search info on different web delivery codec available out there and find the one that suit your need (what is your target audiance? will they have to install a player/CODEC to see your thing? etc). Check what others use (Apple, IFilm, etc) as guideline. Sorenson 3, H264 and On2 are good starting point for me, but it may be different for you. There is also a Hash2Flash plug-in by Marcel Bricman (nick ZPiDER) that is supposed to be included in the current version of A:M. Haven't try this one yet but it worth checking it out I think.

Whoa this is GREAT! Kudos!

if I remember, 2001 was print with Dennis the Dog again, with a little more contrast. At least, I remember having two Dennis CD

I saw this before. I think it occur when a volumetric point in about the same direction as the camera, so the "end" of the volumetric cone is visible. It seem to be related to the way Hash deal with the end of the volumetrics.

Top notch Colin!

Select the camera in your Object folder. Then you'll see a Perpective/Ortho setting in your Propertie Panel. It won't show if you select the shortcut to Camera in your Choreography folder EDIT: Cool!

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think you can import .psd in A:M, not directly. I suggest you save your Photoshop as a Targa file (.tga) with 24bit, or 32bit if you have an Alpha Channel and want to preserve transparency.

Wow that looks really good. Why don't you try some displacement to mix up the edges a little. Right now it looks too smooth. Great job!

I'm not sure what look you want, but I like it a lot as is. The shape is really nice. Yeah yeah!

Nice concept. I agree with most of what been said so far. The water disturbance would be a must, a big must! Especially with those reflections. As for an easy idea of how to do it, I don't know. Personnaly I would try a TGA sequence displacement or bump map, synched with the water, but I wouldn't say it is an easy task. But hey, the hard work would pay off. I don't really like the environment. As is, I find it disturbing and not really on par with the fountain which is the real focus here. The buildings as silhouette is an interesting idea though. Lighting could also be less flat overall, and especially in the piano room. Also, I was wondering if it is possible to light the water particle (I'm not sure). If it is, I would also look at this option. Those shows are usually heavily based on the lighting concept. It would support your particle show visually. For exemple, would it be possible to color the water with lighting? (I think now it is done with particle color over time) As Pengy said, the cam movement is sometime jerky, while the mood is smooth and easy. Are you using a path and target on this? The transition out of the window is also to harsh, almost look as a cut. Otherwise it is great work. I think it has a lot potential. The water patern look great, kudos on that. Maybe the particle are a bit slow and linear in the movement IMO, but it does the trick. A nice case you have there!

ok I found the text he says, but only in french. So I'll try to translate it to english, but it won't have this poem or prayer touch in it. Oh God! grant me this moment unique and rare blurred like a breath invisible like a black hole that would create in the INFINITY something that can be FINITE like Death.... The original French text... O, Seigneur ! Accorde-moi cet instant unique et rare flou comme un souffle invisible comme un trou noir qui permettrait de créer dans l'INFINITE quelque chose qui réussit à être FINI comme la Mort... Thxs everyone

You're right! Asked to the writer of the text, and he confirmed that it is Hebrew. Now I have no idea why I thought it was Armenian Thxs for the correction!

Absolutely. The blood used on the show is also very very dark. It was an artistic choice of the scenic guy. And we had to darken the original version at his demand.

we splashed a white board with false blood, and took several hi-res pict with a digital cam. Then we created a synchronized movie in a composition program, and exported it as a TGA seq. We then applied it on the wall as Cookie-Cut map, and rendered it out as another layer with an alpha channel, so we could change our mind about it without having to do the whole render all over again. lol. Well it isn't french, it is armenian language thxs for the nice feedbacks

This is the last steps of the project that began in this thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=16959&st=0 Beware that there is mature content in this movie. I put a larger version, the first on was a widescreen stamp DesertPool002.mov

Good eye. The birds were rendering as a different layer. So when the director ask us more birds, we just duplicate the layer and make some modification to it in our composition software (scale, flip, blur, etc). Yes, radial blur set to Zoom in the composition software. They are hand animated, constrained to different paths, and use the same flappin action, but we use the Ease channels to desynchronize their movement. Indeed. This is part of small FX that would need to be add. Also heat distortion and smoke on the chimney (that may not be visible yet on this shot). Thxs for the suggestion It is a video sequence. We did pull the camera back when we filmed it, but not by that much, so we scaled it down in our composition software, and chroma-key it. We then imported the sequence in A:M as a rotoscope to sync the cam movement, but did not include the Rotoscope in the final render, so we still could act on it if needed in our compo software.

You are right. The whole show is in the dark, so at the end when this sequence play, the director wanted to get a real bright effect on the audience to contrast. We'll go tomorrow at the theater to adjust it with the video projector, but it may be overbright right now yes this is blood. The work with blood FX was real cool on this project. A:M handle it just as we expect. More is to come in the rest of the sequence. The birds are A:M. In fact it is the Eagle from the CD, quickly modified in a Raven like bird. We really like the flappin FX with 100 motion blur and 25 passes. It gives a nasty and dirty feeling. Thxs for the comments and feedback!

This is the first 4 seconds rendered with live action sequence mixed. A lot of smalls FX aren't done yet, and we aren't sure about the final color correction, but it gives an idea where it's heading. Though a lot of things can't be changed at this point, we'll have to do the same process with another guy on the chair in the next ten days. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. BSPartOneWeb.mov

Due to tight schedule, we decide to go for the render with this version. We'll eventually get back to it to render out more still. I'll get back to you with the final movie version with live mix. Thxs for the feedback through this wip