Company Holiday Greeting

[Gerry]

I've started some tests for this animated Holiday Greeting for my company. The render I'm posting is a very preliminary test and I'm posting it because there's quite a bit of pixelation in the ornament at bottom right. I've tried rendering both as QT and AVI, and gone as high as nine passes to try to remedy it. Also changed my driver from Open GL to Direct3D v8, and nothing's helped.

 

Comments appreciated!

 

Gerry

[Bruce Del Porte]

What compression codec did you use and what setting for that codec? It looks like compression artifacting. Try rendering it as a TGA and see if you are still getting the pixilation.

[Gerry]

Bruce - not sure how I check what codec at the rendering stage. If you can tell me how I can check it pretty quick. I'll try a targa sequence and import into QT to see if that works.

 

thanks,

Gerry

[Gerry]

Yep, Targas render fine. I rendered out a 20 frame sequence. here's one.

[Rodney]

Simple yet effective Gerry.

 

Hope you plan to flatten the word 'community' upon landing though. (I'm sure you've already done it)

[Gerry]

Good point Rod. I tried to get fancy when making the individual word models but in the chor I can see that it's not working. I had in mind to have each one have a simple featherlike bend. But I like your suggestion to have them flatten out as they land.

[Gerry]

Here's a wireframe test of the first scene. I haven't put the pine needles material on the tree yet, and the yellow "rope" on the tree branches will likewise have a silver, garland-like hair material. I'm putting the hair materials on last because they slow things down somewhat, but otherwise I'm happy with the way the hair is working as this is my first time using it.

 

[attachmentid=21579]

[Bruce Del Porte]

Here is a one minute tutorial on where to look for and change the AM compression codec.

 

one minute tut

 

At the resolution you use above, you may be able to get away with a data rate of 50 kbits/sec

[Gerry]

That's a great help, Bruce. Thanks!

[Gerry]

Here's a wireframe test render of the last scene of this animation. Still working on some details and timing. I exploded the ornament manually. It seems a little sluggish on impact. Comments welcome.

[Bruce Del Porte]

Hey Gerry nice job. Maybe make the bounce impacts a little more crisp but I think it looks terrific. A couple suggestions:

 

Video Critique

[Gerry]

Bruce - Your crit was so unbelievably thorough and gracious I don't know what to say but thank you. All your comments will all be considered carefully and I'm sure I'll end up taking most, and probably all, of your suggestions.

 

I came back on here to post the following wireframe test of the complete movie. Feel free to comment!

 

Gerry

[Dhar]

Way to go Gerry. That looks fantastic!

[Gerry]

Thanks, Dhar. the first scene is rendering over the weekend at the office so I'll see then if the hair materials are behaving. I'm also super eager to incorporate all Bruce's comments when I go back in on Monday.

[Gerry]

Got some wacky hair behavior in this render. I'm comparing the settings for the pine needles, which look fine, to the settings for the gold garland. So far I haven't found any significant differences, but this is my first time using hair materials.

 

As usual, comments and advice welcome!

[Gerry]

Here's another question...In refining the various elements I'm applying the company logo directly to the ornament. I hadn't done this before because I was unable to "flatten" properly.

 

Well I've finally figured out flattening, however I am unable to apply the decal directly in the action window. I'm only able to place the image as a rotoscope. there doesn't seem to be an option for using an image as a decal in an action window.

 

Any help gratefully accepted.

[mtpeak2]

Check and make sure dynamics is turned off, check shortcuts also.

[Gerry]

Thanks mt, I'll try that. I was also looking at Colin's excellent hair tute at http://www.colins-loft.net/CoopHair.html and I can see there are a lot more settings and options than I was aware of.

 

I highly recommend it.

 

Gerry