"White Render"

[jonnyflash]

I was watching one of the videos and it referred to a white render. I like that look but don't know where or how to do it. Anyone?

[robcat2075]

"Ambient occlusion" is probably what you saw. A:M does that.

[jason1025]

I was watching one of the videos and it referred to a white render. I like that look but don't know where or how to do it. Anyone?

 

 

I agree the white render is a great look and it is very simple to achieve.

I recommend you use these settings as an initial jumping off point then play with the values from there.

Create a new choreography.

Turn off all your lights in the chor. You don't have to do this it depends on how much ambient intensity you have.

Turn on AO global color 80 x80 is a good jumping off point. lower the intensity if the render is to bright

Make the objects/models in your chor a slightly darker grey, it gives a nice clay look.

 

render with ambient occlusion on. lower % give more grain and take less time to render. I would use multiple passes atleast 4, but the more the better.

[John Bigboote]

Make the objects/models in your chor a slightly darker grey, it gives a nice clay look.

 

 

What's the best way to do this?

[jason1025]

Make the objects/models in your chor a slightly darker grey, it gives a nice clay look.

 

 

What's the best way to do this?

 

[NancyGormezano]

Make the objects/models in your chor a slightly darker grey, it gives a nice clay look.

 

 

What's the best way to do this?

 

If your model already has colored groups, decals, etc ...then make the model a front projection target in the chor - and use a rotoscope of whatever color you'd like (white, gray, etc) - I don't believe hair will get front projected tho...and bump maps will still show (unless you turn them off) - I left colored lights in (with spec), First 2 images are both IBL (not white) with AI=30% (no AO) - 18secs/pass to render, 4 passes, both cases. 2nd render is to show how model is already colored, textured.

 

EDIT: the third image is just AI=50%, AO=80% (no lights) - took 3:05/pass - 2 passses only - for total 6:10 mins - Big difference in time.

Edited April 4, 2009 by NancyGormezano

[steve392]

.then make the model a front projection target in the chor

Could you tell me how you do that ,I can't find it anywhere .probably looking in the wrong place lol

[NancyGormezano]

.then make the model a front projection target in the chor

Could you tell me how you do that ,I can't find it anywhere .probably looking in the wrong place lol

 

In the chor - go to shortcut to model/options/front projection target =ON

 

If you want the ground plane to also be front projected, and to show the shadows (will only show Klieg, z buffer shadow type, I believe - not sure) - then also make ground plane flat shaded = ON

[steve392]

Thank's a lot Nancy ,gota play with this after seing your stuff

[John Bigboote]

I'm finally getting around to trying this stuff out... THANKS for 'dummifying' this for me, Jason and Nancy.

[mouseman]

I tried a quick test, but had problems. I basically followed Jason's instructions, but:

1. Didn't blank out the lights, since he said it might not be necessary

2. Did not change the model to only have grey colour, since Nancy said you might not need to do it

3. Tried out both Jason's and Nancy's values for AI and AI.

 

I used the Rabbit model from the CD. I was hoping there was a way that did not require changing the model to get this effect. Either I'm doing something wrong, or I misunderstood what Nancy was saying.

 

I did set Shortcut to Ground to both Front Projection Target and Flat Shaded.

I set Shortcut to Rabbit to Front Projection Target.

 

I'm attaching the project and the picture of how it rendered.

 

 

ETA: I disabled the lights, and the only difference was that the rabbit displayed a bit darker (though still visible).

AO_Test.prj

[photoman]

To get a pure AO render you do have to blank the lights. Make sure the global ambience is set to 100% and that it is turned on in the camera settings (Ive had that problem before). You should also turn the camera background to white.

 

-Photoman

[NancyGormezano]

I used the Rabbit model from the CD. I was hoping there was a way that did not require changing the model to get this effect. Either I'm doing something wrong, or I misunderstood what Nancy was saying.

 

I did set Shortcut to Ground to both Front Projection Target and Flat Shaded.

I set Shortcut to Rabbit to Front Projection Target.

 

I'm attaching the project and the picture of how it rendered.

 

It appears that you don't ALSO have a rotoscope for the camera - which is what gets front projected onto the ground & models. Make a tga, jpeg image (any color - in your case white). Right click on camera, choose NEW/Rotoscope. I changed lighting, and values as well.

 

EDIT - noticed text on image was wrong - corrected to say - key, fill off (instead of key, rim off)

[mouseman]

Changed the camera background to white.

I did not have Ambience set to 100% in the Camera, so I changed that.

Not a whole lot of difference.

 

I'm not sure what Nancy meant by IBL in her post.

 

Regardless, the color is still sticking to the model.

 

ETA: Trying Nancy's suggestions now ...

AO_Test.prj

[NancyGormezano]

I'm not sure what Nancy meant by IBL in her post.

 

Regardless, the color is still sticking to the model.

 

I hope you've spotted my post above -

 

IBL or Image based lighting (different from rotoscope being front projected onto targets to turn them white) is a way to make the lighting look like it has different colors - instead of choosing global ambiance tpe = global color = white, choose global ambiance type = image based lighting and then choose an environment map that is some image with lotsa colors, or could choose an image that is white

 

SO to sum up: camera rotoscope - front projected changes the color of the models, Global ambiance (with AI settings, and type) changes the lighting.

[mouseman]

Yes, indeed, that did it! Thank you, Nancy! You are fabulous!

 

Here is mine with lights disabled, white rotoscope on the camera, both AI and AO at 80%.

 

I'm done for the night, but next step is to get some shadows on the ground floor.

(ETA: And why not, here's the white that I used for the camera rotoscope.)

AO_Test.prj

[Eric2575]

IBL=Image based Lighting, a setting in the chor. IBL and/or AO will no take the color from you model, you have to do that. An easy way to do this just for experimenting with AO and a model that has color is to select the complete model in the modeling window and name the resulting group to something like "white" - easy to remember. Now set the diffuse color of that group to white. Since this is the last group in the model, it will override all other colors in the model and now you have a white model to play with. To get all you colors back, either delete the white group, or drag it to the top of the list in the chor. Note, this will not do anything with any decal you may have applied to the model, they will render as usual. In order for the decals to disappear, you can set the decals' properties to "other" and then reset when you are finished with the AO render.

[NancyGormezano]

I'm done for the night, but next step is to get some shadows on the ground floor.

 

I'm not sure why you're not getting shadows from the rim light - should be z buffered, and ground plane must be set to Flat shaded. Turn off all lights except rim - make it white, make sure shadows is on

 

And Eric - easiest way to make something white is to front project - front projection will also cover color decals (but will show bump maps).

 

AO will produce the diffuse shadows.

 

When you fool with IBL and want to change the environ map, to see how other imagery will look - you will have to do a trick for the change to show up - which is to toggle the AO value to some number and then back to the value you want.

 

Again - hope you saw prev post on IBL:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=299417

[mouseman]

I'm not sure what Nancy meant by IBL in her post.

[...] instead of choosing global ambiance tpe = global color = white, choose global ambiance type = image based lighting

 

Aha, beautiful description! Now I understand what you wrote originally! (Sorry to make you re-explain it.) Your image example is worth 1000 words, as well.

[Eric2575]

Nancy:

 

I just tried front projection - worked great, thank you!

 

Eric

[johnl3d]

Decide to try this used a flying pig model I had removed material and actually redid decal eyes as the last ones were on two patches and the initial pass showed strange extra spots. Then this render is with multi pass off which might accent the little dents near the nose holes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then tried another mdoel with the ambience turned up

 

 

[NancyGormezano]

with hair and bump maps and IBL and front projected

[John Bigboote]

This has been a great discussion! I must admit I was a little 'daunted' by AO and IBL, but after all the GREAT knowledge shared in this thread and a LITTLE experimentation, I now feel like I am 'up' on both. ERIC---I think your 'white' trick with the new group is good too, I did'nt know that about the group ordering override-thing. MOUSEMAN- Thanks for posting your white image, how do you get your whites so white? Must use bleach. NANCY- You are the BEST!!!

 

 

ALSO--- I think that front projection is a powerful trick...I'm trying to think what other things can be done with it... It is projecting thru the camera a rotoscope image/movie onto a target that you specify...right?

[NancyGormezano]

ALSO--- I think that front projection is a powerful trick...I'm trying to think what other things can be done with it... It is projecting thru the camera a rotoscope image/movie onto a target that you specify...right?

 

Yes.

 

A camera rotoscope (image/movie), with "front projection" of it on ground plane (and other pseudo objects) is the trick used normally when integrating video with CG.

 

I use it all the time to set backgrounds for still images, or shots where the camera/front projected objects doesn't move. IF camera moves, the rotoscope moves with it. Thus it's best to match motion of camera with a video/movie, instead of a still. If objects/models move, can get some interesting effects (as the texture changes on them)

 

There are lots of other creative uses of it as well, beyond realism. There's no limit. It's fun to combine it with transparency, reflectivity, interesting background images, etc

 

In these 2 images, I front projected the same background geometry with 2 different rotoscopes - for night and day vistas in Cow town - like I've said many times - I'm a lazy twit.

 

http://www.hash.com/stills/displayimage.ph...m=47&pos=12

 

http://www.hash.com/stills/displayimage.ph...m=47&pos=11

[mouseman]

I just had a thought. Remember that old 80s music video "Take On Me" with the combination live action and hand-drawn animation worlds? It would be kind of neat to do a rendered world (maybe toon rendered?) and white AO world. Maybe you could have the front projection rotoscope be an animation, with random scribbles going through it. It would probably require some heavy video editing.

[NancyGormezano]

I just had a thought. Remember that old 80s music video "Take On Me" with the combination live action and hand-drawn animation worlds? It would be kind of neat to do a rendered world (maybe toon rendered?) and white AO world. Maybe you could have the front projection rotoscope be an animation, with random scribbles going through it. It would probably require some heavy video editing.

 

I'm not familiar with the video and I'm having a tough time visualizing what you are describing - Perhaps show us a short sample of what you are thinking...

 

Anything with squiggly wiggly lines always sounds good to me.

[johnl3d]

I remember the video girl reading comics gets pulled in ..have the mp3 file on the computer but not the video..

 

 

watch here

 

http://www.mtv.com/videos/a-ha/7846/take-o...tml#artist=1556

 

 

 

download here

 

http://www.etplanet.com/download/details.php?file=666

 

 

screen captture

[mouseman]

Is there a way to make a surface alpha colored? For example, if I want to create an animation with a window that shows something behind it that is composted in, but have objects come through the window that are cut off behind the pane of the window?

[NancyGormezano]

Not exactly sure what you are asking for - but in this example - the window is a layer with an image on it that has an alpha channel - the background is the camera rotoscope, and the rabbit is a front projection target. If you didn't want to see the rotoscope as background, but still have the object(rabbit) be front projected - then create a background model (walls, etc?) that obscures the ...um...background (camera rotoscope), and is NOT a front projection target (ie, the ground in the 2nd image).

Edited May 14, 2009 by NancyGormezano

[mouseman]

Not exactly sure what you are asking for - but in this example - the window is a layer with an image on it that has an alpha channel - the background is the camera rotoscope, and the rabbit is a front projection target. If you didn't want to see the rotoscope as background, but still have the object(rabbit) be front projected - then create a background model (walls, etc?) that obscures the ...um...background (camera rotoscope), and is NOT a front projection target.

Thanks for trying to make sense of my gibberish! I guess I was describing something more complicated than what was in the video. I think if I describe what was in the video, that would be a lot simpler. (By the way, this is not an official project for anything, just playing around. Don't waste a bunch of time if it's hard.)

 

What I was looking for is close to what you displayed, but is a little different. Basically the "Take On Me" video has a hand-animated world, but there are a few places in the world that have a window that shows the exact same objects and people as live action. If a person walks on the other side of the window, they are viewed as live action; if they stick their head over to look around the window, their head is again animated (and the portion of them still behind the window is live action). A poor quality screen shot is attached.

 

I was thinking that this kind of effect could be achieved with a composite of two layers (or rotoscopes, sorry I'm using the terminology loosely here) displaying effectively the same animation, just rendered differently. The back layer would be the live action (which I would simulate with regular old A:M 3-D).

 

The front layer would be the animated version (I was thinking of using a variation on the front-projected white-out trick earlier in this post). The front layer would in some places have a window in it that would allow the back layer to show through. Here I've specified it in Red.

 

The end result would hopefully look like this image for which I used The GIMP to combine the first two. [ETA: Changed red to transparent, then just let it show through to the BG layer.]

 

Ideally I could do it right in A:M. First render the front with AO and the alpha channel as the front layer. Then use that as a rotoscope over the real rendered piece, which would show through the window. The missing piece for the front layer is modeling this "magic" window so it renders as the alpha channel.

 

I hope that's more clear.

 

I tried thinking of a way of just using an animated texture from a previous render, but I think that wouldn't work because it has to be based on the camera angle, and would be overly distorted.

 

I'll attach the project, too, in case that helps. It uses the white image I posted earlier, plus 2 models from the Extras DVD. It's only one choreography that I changed by hand, unfortunately.

TakeOnMeTest.zip

[NancyGormezano]

By the way, this is not an official project for anything, just playing around. Don't waste a bunch of time if it's hard.

 

Ok - for a quick thought - I think you have multiple concepts going on, as I'm still not sure I understand.

 

In general I would approach something like this by analyzing the exact requirements for the imagery - rather than coming up with a general method. Brute force is usually faster. I would think about using something like After effects for compositing layers, working with alpha channels and dynamic layer masks. Not saying you can't do it all in A:M (probably can).

 

It is not clear how the white models interact with live action models - do they do the same actions (mirror?), are they the same models, must they be seen half in real world/half in white world?

 

If you want to do it all in A:M, then I would think about (just as you have)

 

1) rendering an A:M tga sequence that has your "live action textured reality models look" & presumably this sequence of imagery will then be decaled onto an A:M layer (or flat plane model) - now called a reality plane

2) add the reality plane layer object into the scene, decal that layer with previously rendered tga sequence. Animate & position that layer how you want the "plane" to cut the scene

3) "white front project " and animate the "other world" selected models as you want them to step in and out of the reality plane/layer. Render.

 

You may need to do some rendering with alpha buffer ON in some step of the process (thus isolating models from background) - but without knowing exact requirements - it ain't clear.

 

You can also think about using A:M composite feature for combining/layering of rendered seuqunces

 

And that's my "off the cuff", probably "off the charts" quicky thoughts.

[Paul Forwood]

This isn't a white render but it does demonstrate the basic principals of the "Take on me" shot that you have been refering to:

Comp_1.mov

This simply uses the live action as a rotoscope. A model is animated or tracked to the live action and a screen is placed at the boundary of the two worlds. The screen is just a patch with a surface colour that is preferably absent from all other objects in the sequence, has 100% ambience, receives no shadows, casts no shadows or reflections. This gives the renders a key colour that can be turned into an alpha channel.

With a little more care aligning the model with the live action, to ensure that the actor is covered, you should be able to achieve an effect similar to that in "Take on me". Also it would have been better to replace the live action with a still of an empty room once the actor is obscured but this was just a very rough test of concept.

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

It used to be possible to give image sequences a key colour as far as I can remember but A:M 14 seems to be missing this feature so I had to do the colour keying in After Effects. Perhaps it is back in A:M 15 but I haven't checked.

[MJL]

So who's the handsome actor you hired for the film?

[Paul Forwood]

So who's the handsome actor you hired for the film?

Oh, just some ol' boy who works for nothing.

[NancyGormezano]

An all A:M solution - similar to what Paul did - but uses a layer mapped with animated movie that acts as the reality clipping plane.

 

Layer, camera, mouse all animated just for demo purposes

mousewhite8compressed.mov

[NancyGormezano]

couldn't help myself - I came down with a case of the JohnL3d Gnomatic heebie jeebies

 

recursively rendered mouse with flat shading (front projected with white) - changed movie on layer to previously rendered movie(s), changed rotoscope to a fractal image, front projected that on flat shaded mouse

mousefractalcompressed.mov

[heyvern]

So Nancy, Goddess of "Front Projection" (that makes the mind wander ),

 

Front projection doesn't work with alpha channels on images? I was trying to put an animated "shimmer" across some surfaces using a blurred white streak with an alpha channel. Unfortunately the models with front projection render "black" where the alpha is instead of what I expected... the white line to render over the unmodified surface of the shape. Maybe I'm expecting too much. I did turn on "Include in Alpha Buffer" so that isn't it.

 

-vern

[NancyGormezano]

So Nancy, Goddess of "Front Projection" (that makes the mind wander ),

 

Front projection doesn't work with alpha channels on images?

 

Hey! Don't forget to imagine my Backside Projection as well, as long as your mind is wandering.

 

Interesting find. I had never tried with image that had alpha channel - but you are correct, wherever there is no data (empty channel) it appears to project white - another way (convoluted a bit) to make a white-ish render,

 

Rotoscope in frog picture is all empty alpha channel - makes everything white (but still see bump maps). Ground is flat shaded. Frog is NOT flat shaded. Background color was black - but empty alpha channel makes it white too.

 

AND if you can't get enough of the Toad - there are many more experiments (non-white) seen here at Oxymoron Theatre