Woloshyniuk and dark jedi's project

[Woloshyniuk]

just a sneak peak of a nearly finished render!!! Model by woloshyniuk, Dark jedi models comming soon.

test.bmp

[KenH]

Cool! I know there's no fog in space, but maybe there's space dust. I think that would add a sense of scale to it. Also, is it only just one light source? I bet in the movies they cheat and use at least a 3 point light system. Maybe also a bright nebula would pull it out of the blackness.

[Woloshyniuk]

Well we actually have seven lights in this photo. They are all sortof lined up on a flat plane, but i wanted it to look realistic and like it was comming from a sun. Do you think theres too much shadow? How do you suggest we would do clumps of space dust? (4 bright lights on the one side, and 3 dim lights on the dark side possibly reflecting off a nearby planet)

[Woloshyniuk]

does anyone know what it means when the purple camera boxes dont show anymore when im in choreography. I go to camera mode and a cuple of my cameras arent showing their purple boxes. Will the program still know to render in the "box" that isnt showing anymore. In some other cameras, as i scan thru the scene, the purple box appears and dissapears and then appears again.

[Leo73]

That's one good looking shot you have there. Can't wait to the the animation of it.

[KenH]

There's an option to turn off the purple camera guides.....either in options or the camera properties.

 

I think your shot needs more rim light from behind the ship.

For dust, you could get good results with fog on the camera....maybe even use an image on it. Or you could do particles.....like the dust example in the manual.

[Paul Forwood]

Regarding the purple "safe" markers: You could try hitting the "1" key on your keypad to make sure that you are still looking through the camera.

0,2,4,5,6,8=Orthogonal

7=Bird's eye

1=Camera view.

 

You probably knew that but just incase....

---------------------------------------------

 

Actually, if the boxes are flashing off and on it sounds like a graphics card issue. You might try changing swapping between OpenGL and DirX to see if that improves anything or updating your drivers. (Then again it could be a bug).

 

Oh, the ship looks amazing!

[Dark_Jedi]

No, we are well aware of that

 

We actually have about 7 cameras in this specific Chor... and most of them show the box but two dont.. and one jumps in and out of it...

 

also... there is light from the back of the ship.. its just not very bright because theres really only one specific light force in space

 

and as for fixing graphics card? we are rending at school computers so i dont know how much we can do....

[Eric2575]

That looks terriffic!!! I've been away from the forum for a long time, is there a thread you guys have that describes your progres on how you textured that incredible spaceship? You should enter that in one of the image contests. Love it.

[Woloshyniuk]

No for this ship i didnt post any progress. It took forever to build and texture it and i kinda forgot about posting. Didnt have enuf time to ask for feedback. Glad u like it.

[agep]

Beautiful model and render!

[Tralfaz]

Kudos on a great model. The render looks fantastic, and I also can't wait to see the animation!

 

Keep up the great work and keep us posted.

 

Al

[Woloshyniuk]

to add fog or "dust" can i just turn the fog function on from the camera? Does this always equally distribute the fog or can i make clumps of it? Are there any other easy fast ways to create clumps of dust?

[frosteternal]

to add fog or "dust" can i just turn the fog function on from the camera? Does this always equally distribute the fog or can i make clumps of it? Are there any other easy fast ways to create clumps of dust?

Fog is simply applied based on distance from the camera.

To do clumps of dust, I've had great success with sprite-type particle emitters, containing bitmaps of dusty clouds. These can be effectively animated over time in transparency/size to get a nice dust-cloud effect.

You could also use Layers to position dust clouds, but I would suggest rendering the dust effects separately and compositing on top of the rest of the shot to keep unsightly object intersections from giving away the 2-D-ness of Layers.

Just a few ideas.

[KenH]

There's an option in the fog to add an image. I believe that would be a greyscale image that would distribute the fog. The fog color is the camera background color.

[Woloshyniuk]

well i must render the first scenes tomorow since it is the first deadline. Do u think its worth trying to add in the fog using the camera? This image u speak of is it already in the program libraries or do i have to produce my own image? I really little time so i need a way that wont take long. I agree with being careful with the layers to hide the 2dness of the fog. Ill be careful where i add it. Possibly i wil make it show up more and more as the battle goes on? THere could be more debree floating around after ships have been exploding. All i need is a quick and easy way to do it that wont take more than an hour to figure out and apply to the shots.

[KenH]

It's easy. You can change the settings in the camera or the render settings.....make sure you're rendering from the one you change. There are even visual representations of the start and end of the fog.......larger end values give a more subtle fog. I think it would make a difference in your render. The image option in the fog options is abit of a mystery....I can't get fog like results using it and I don't think it would be good if the camera was to move anyway.

 

However, if your space background is the camera background colour, then it won't work. You'd have to go the particle fog route.

[Dark_Jedi]

hmmm seems like alot of effort for just fog

[Woloshyniuk]

well ive got a dome in there for the space and theres 2 holes at the domes poles but they r rarely seen by the cam (for this reason i keep the cams colour black) but i cud get rid of it. So all i have to do is simply go to the cams options and type in a value for fog? My cam moves alot so i guess i shudnt use an image, just the plane old fog. I feel a bit hesitant to try it out because im not shure how much it will slow render time down and i also really like how crisp and clean the render looks. But i will give it a try tomorow. Do u know how much it slows the render time down?

[Woloshyniuk]

hmmm seems like alot of effort for just fog

looks like very little effort actually. Just click and set value. Doesnt get any easier then that.

[KenH]

It's not hard on render times.....it might even be a "2D post effect"......but that can work for fog as even if the camera moves, you can only see the same distance ahead as before anyway. As I say, it can be subtle.......the back of the ship can be crisp (higher start value) while there's a hint of fog on the front. See what you think...

[Dark_Jedi]

I was being sarcastic btw

 

Yeah fog will add something needed to the scenes..

[frosteternal]

It's not hard on render times.....it might even be a "2D post effect"......but that can work for fog as even if the camera moves, you can only see the same distance ahead as before anyway. As I say, it can be subtle.......the back of the ship can be crisp (higher start value) while there's a hint of fog on the front. See what you think...

 

You can also make objects ignore fog. This is in the properties for objects in the Chor. This would add depth cues to objects that need it, but not things like stars planets, etc.

And fog is very fast.. not a post-process, and I've never seen any rendering time hit at all. (I think it is encapsulated in the a-buffer rendering process, but it doesn't really matter.)

[Dark_Jedi]

well for this first small sample your going to get.. there wont be fog or dust.. atleast not till later

[MattWBradbury]

About showing off the details of the ship: I would suggest using something like two of Yves's 8 sky lights at a low intensity in an entire sphere around your scene and then having one main light. The main light should always be shinning downwards, not upwards. I looked through quite a few space scenes in Star Wars and noticed that the bottoms of ships were never bleached in light.

 

As far as giving depth, I would suggest using wider camera angles (shorter focal length). The greater foreshortening should give you the effect without adding fog. I didn't notice fog in any of the shots I observed.

 

------------------

Oh, I forgot to mention. That vent on the side of the ship, you can make a sprite emitter exhausting out some sort of gas. I think it would add a bit more realism to the ship.

 

Those Red and Teal stripes along the side of the ship are really intense. You might want to darken and desaturate them a bit.

[Woloshyniuk]

thanks those are a couple good ideas (the teal and red windows are not final in this picture... at that point i forgot to drop my texture into them) So you think i shud set a focal length (which i havent done) close to the camera and then the distant part of the ship will look a bit blurry and add a bit of depth?

[MattWBradbury]

I never mentioned depth of field, but if you want to use it in your scenes, just know that any space stations or stars will be very blury.

[MattWBradbury]

Here's what I was talking about before when I mentioned Yves's skylights.

 

 

Basically, it's just using AO and a sun light, and you can see all of the details. I made the model quickly so I could just show you what I was refering to.

[Dark_Jedi]

well we started out using those skylights.. but moved them arround so there was a sun on one side and darker on the other.. i guess we should try that out too

[MattWBradbury]

I hope to see some ships explode. I used the rebuild plug-in and it blew my satilite up quite nicely.

 

[animation removed]

 

-----

Sorry about that last animation. The size was huge and went really fast. This new one looks a lot better and is only 100 kb.

 

explosion.mov

[Dark_Jedi]

Whoa.. wicked.. howd you do the particles?

[MattWBradbury]

The explosion particle sprites are the ones from the A:M CD.

 

I build a proxy model of the satilite and then used ERebuild with force extrusion and it made the entire model in lots of chunks. I gave it a dynamic explode newton physics tag and gave it some rotations and initial velocity. I think it came out quite well.

[Dark_Jedi]

can all this be done in AM? or is this some other program you did this in?

[MattWBradbury]

 

That all was A:M. Don't you see the x,y,z axis in the bottom right?

[Dark_Jedi]

lol my bad,

 

mind sharing how to do all this exactly? would make the explosions all the better

[MattWBradbury]

Bascially you want to strip your model down to the bare bones so you get what the model would look like far away. This is so that you don't end up with a 100k polygon model when you rebuild the model.

 

Once you've done that, use the ERebuild plug-in used for newton physics (I believe it's on SGross's plugin site, but I can't find the link at this moment) to create your model in chunks. Set the mode's plugin properties to use in Newton Simulations, set the simulation type to Dynamic Explode, go down to the bottom of the list and set an explosion veloctiy, and then set to use calculated COM.

 

Go into your chore and find the time you want it to explode, set that time in the chore's newton settings, and then simulate the newton physics. Tweak the explosion until you get something you like.

 

Once you've got the exploding model down, you'll want to put in the explosion particles. They can be fond on the A:M CD. Simply import the material and drop it onto a standard sphere model (make sure the model is 100% transparent). Throw it in the choreography where the center of the explosion was set, and let fly. Make sure that you have Draw Sprites turned on in the rendering options window. Adjust the starting time of the particle emitter to 1 frame after the exploding model is set to the explode. Adjust the initial velocity until it matches that of the exploding model. Make sure to turn drag to 0% (because there is no drag in space). Soon after the first explosion particles start coming out, you're going to want to turn the emission rate down to 0%. In mine, the emission rate went to zero around frame 10.

 

This quick tut is kinda crappy, but I'm rushing it because it is Easter after all.

[Dark_Jedi]

Oh terrably sorry! i didnt mean to waist your time on easter, have a good one!

[Dark_Jedi]

Hey, just another quick frame for all of you, just to show you that we are doing something

[KenH]

Wow...really cool. The green lights seem abit bright/new looking though.

[Dark_Jedi]

yeah i noticed that to.... but nobody will notice

[MattWBradbury]

You might want to set your lights to cast more than 1 ray. You could easily count the number of lights based off of the visible shadows.

[Woloshyniuk]

dark jedi i emailed u the gmail account. Try to send as soon as possible.

[3DArtZ]

Hey, just another quick frame for all of you, just to show you that we are doing something

 

the gun turret looks like it has rust on it..... can rust form in space???

Looks good though!

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[clonewar12345]

I really like the amount of detail in that image. How did you do the lazers?