Opening Space Scenes

[Darkwing]

So, time;s been tight, but ELZ is still being worked on. The following are three shots I have completed so far for the opening. These replace the still pics that I used in the animatic I posted a while ago. These are just still shots, but they are animated in the final product:

 

 

 

[paradymx]

Nice!!!!! Those look really good. Especially the Solar flare/eruption. Would love to see them in motion. I'm not sure on the second image......Is that a comet? I would really like to see that one in motion to see how the particles disperse as it travels through space.

[Eric2575]

Very nice. This could be good...

[Darkwing]

ya, i'm quite happy with the solar flare. i'll export those few shots in their motion and upload them here for you all to preview

[a.quaihoi]

ya, i'm quite happy with the solar flare. i'll export those few shots in their motion and upload them here for you all to preview

 

 

Hey Darkwing,

 

I was looking for a tutorial to do a space scene like that . . .

[Darkwing]

you want me to do a tut on solar flares?!?! wow, just wow, I never thought I'd be of that much use! I'll make one tomorrow, it's actually a fairly simple technique, i have some experimenting i want to do with it such as having the flare release from the sun like they do. i have an idea but don't know if it'll work, so i guess it's something for me to play with tomorrow

[Darkwing]

here;s the shots just thrown together un-edited:

 

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/7/30/2026414/intro.mp4

[ptiversen]

I wish the animation of the planets were longer. I am trying to see all of your spectacular work of space and the rotation of the planets. I want more.

 

Keep up the great work.

[Tralfaz]

Hey Darkwing! Outstanding images and animation so far. The solar flair reminds me a bit of the opening of Star Trek Voyager and the other part reminds me a bit of Star Trek DS9. Very well done! Definitely looking forward to seeing more of this.

 

Al

[Darkwing]

i forgot about voyager, but DS9 was definitely an inspiration in the whole comet thing. I think DS9 revolutionized comet art

 

as for them being longer, they will be adapted to the score when it is ready, but still, it won't make them much longer. For my next shot I envision some small aseroids breaking up in a planets atmosphere and you can see impact shockwaves on the planet surface. That one will be a little more in depth and will require more time put into designing the shot. One thing that I am running into a problem with is my exporting function. I've always had this problem with AM on my Vista and that when I export it to AVI, I have to import it into movie maker and export it as a WMV for it to work right or play or not turn green and pruple and misframe the image. Doing this reduces the quality as you can probably tell in the animated version, it definitely does not look HD, yet I have HD set as my export option in both AM and movie maker. BTW, it only works n movie maker, will not work in any other video editing app until it has been exported from movie maker. I have it set to full frames uncompressed in my render options but it always does it to me. As for using the other render file types, they are quite unstable, mov just plain and simply hates windows and I don't want a billion images in a folder in TGA format, in which case I couldn't import them into and editing app that I have at the right frame rate. The more I do with AM, the more it looks like I'll have to upgrade which is somewhat out of the question. Oh well, I've always had to make do with what I had, so tht's what I'm doing.

[Gerry]

This is looking nice Darkwing! The second segment needs better definition in the comet tail, right now it's looking a little solid rather than gaseous.

 

Wish I could help with your export probs but I have no experience with Vista.

[Darkwing]

yeah, if only when it exported on my mac it would save the file. so much software to upgrade just to get simple things working

[Gerry]

Well if you've got a Mac can you render to tga's and import them into QT? You don't have the fine editing options but you'll maintain the quality.

 

Or iMovie? I'm not familiar with it but is that an option?

[rusty]

Very nice! Much lot like my own efforts (http://www.virtualmediastudios.com/wip/) which, now that the book is finished (well, book one of a trilogy), I plan to return to. I feel I know where you're coming from... definitely a kindred spirit. And, I know how much fun you are having -- too cool huh! Look forward to following your efforts.

 

Rusty

 

Edit: You have a very nice effect going on the solar flare... I'm sure you've looked at real ones for reference and know it's going far too fast.

[TheSpleen]

Impressive

[Darkwing]

Very nice! Much lot like my own efforts (http://www.virtualmediastudios.com/wip/) which, now that the book is finished (well, book one of a trilogy), I plan to return to. I feel I know where you're coming from... definitely a kindred spirit. And, I know how much fun you are having -- too cool huh! Look forward to following your efforts.

 

Rusty

 

Edit: You have a very nice effect going on the solar flare... I'm sure you've looked at real ones for reference and know it's going far too fast.

 

 

ya, in my edited version the speed is slowed down quite a bit

[Darkwing]

so, still in the WIP stage here are some day old images of the next shot for the space scenes. More stuff has been added/tweaked since these pics, and when I'm ready I'll render out some newer pics:

 

 

[John Bigboote]

Great looking images Darkwing! I don't know if the far off stars would be out of focus... would'nt everything in the scene sort of fall into any cameras 'infinity' focal-range?

[Darkwing]

well, they're not out of focus, it's what is technically known as a decal stretched larger then it should be with distortion from the JPG export. The .mov should be in better quality when rendered.... I hope. But current;y I am working on some meteors to crash into my lava moon

[steve392]

Nice images ,especially that top one

[Darkwing]

here's the beginning of a small test render. i'm currently fixing the particle emitters so that they don't do that falling thing when they activate.

 

shot5sm.mov

[robcat2075]

Hey, that looks like real sci fi movie stuff!

 

You're still in V13, right? I think that's why the meteor trails are in one-frame clumps instead of an even trail. You can sort of reduce that by setting your project fps to double or triple the usual frame rate, then compensate for that by setting the render increment to 2 or 3.

[Darkwing]

i'm not sure i follow you on the one frame clumps thing. i undertsand the rendering and frame rate thing, just not the clumps. and yeah, i'm still in little ol V13

[robcat2075]

i'm not sure i follow you on the one frame clumps thing.

 

 

If you were a flaming meteor, wouldn't you leave a continuous trail of fire instead of spots of fire? I would if I were a flaming meteor.

[Darkwing]

ahh, i see, would increasing the rate of emission help?

[robcat2075]

ahh, i see, would increasing the rate of emission help?

 

That might get you bigger clumps and they might overlap more, but you'll have more particles than you wanted for the look you wanted. I think the frame rate trick is more likely. Try a test with one meteor and see if you like it any better.

[Darkwing]

i'm starting to have a peculiar rendering artifact. when I render, I have these random fairly large black dots just appear and disappear. You can see one in the image below, the smaller dots I know are rendering artifacts of the sphere I used for the meteors, but the large black dots just appear and disappear randomly, and are not part of the choreography

 

[Darkwing]

here's the vid with the freaky circles:

 

shot5sm2a.mov

[higginsdj]

Just one point to bear in mind. If you have a nearby star or bright object (ie planet, moon etc) then your starfield needs to be faded or non existent (ie in the shot of the star and it prominence, no star in the starfield should be visible). Its a bit like the moon landings and the idea it was faked because no stars are visible. Compared to nearby stars and planets they are so faint by comparison that they just aren't visible. If you want them then fade them into the scene the further from the star you get.

 

Cheers

[Darkwing]

it's science fiction, it looks cooler with stars, we're not aiming for true realism. after all, SG-1 and stuff would look all that cool without all those stars in the background

[higginsdj]

i'm not sure i follow you on the one frame clumps thing.

 

 

If you were a flaming meteor, wouldn't you leave a continuous trail of fire instead of spots of fire? I would if I were a flaming meteor.

 

In reality - yes and no. There should be clumpiness as meterors break up rather than burn up. The small pieces will burn up or simply slow down and thus cool down - no longer flaming (ie a meteor does not hit the ground as a fireball - no matter what the movies might show).

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

it's science fiction, it looks cooler with stars, we're not aiming for true realism. after all, SG-1 and stuff would look all that cool without all those stars in the background

 

You might want to check again! I've just looked at a whole lot of image captures of space scenes from these shows and there are no stars in the field behind bright objects. ie the background is a deep purple blue (sometimes mottled). Now when the bright object moves off screen, then there is a star field - but one could easily count the number of stars that the field contains. One can easily be duped by what one thinks one sees because we know stars are there.

 

Cheers

[Darkwing]

sheesh, for what one would consider an artisitic place, you don't seem to be taking too kindly to the notion of artistic license and just the fact that it looks good. the concern right now is those freaky black spots, not how many stars are in the scene

[higginsdj]

Looking right is in the eye of the beholder - not just the artist. My intent is to simply give you an alternate viewpoint, in this case you chose to justify your position by saying others do it as opposed to the use of Artistic license.

 

What you ultimately choose is of course up to you.

 

Cheers

[Darkwing]

i think it doesn't matter anymore if i have decided to quit and leave the project. why am i always so indecisive about the decisions i was decisive on

[robcat2075]

Dave, he's doing fantasy art, not a documentary.

 

It's like when Frank Frazetta paints a warrior woman in a string bikini even though she lives in an ice cave.

 

In reality - yes and no. There should be clumpiness as meterors break up rather than burn up. The small pieces will burn up or simply slow down and thus cool down - no longer flaming (ie a meteor does not hit the ground as a fireball - no matter what the movies might show).

 

when that variation is wanted it really oughta be the result of something you intentionally animated by varying the emitter rate, not a precise, every 24th of a second variation.

[Darkwing]

like i said, ultimately, it doesn't really matter much more

[robcat2075]

like i said, ultimately, it doesn't really matter much more

 

I can understand that. It did sound like a rather large scale project. But hopefully you learned some things that will be useful on whatever do next.

[higginsdj]

Dave, he's doing fantasy art, not a documentary.

 

Sorry if I sounded harsh - that wasn't my intention. I'm an Astronomer so I tend to get pedantic about the subject.

 

Cheers

[Darkwing]

like i said, ultimately, it doesn't really matter much more

 

I can understand that. It did sound like a rather large scale project. But hopefully you learned some things that will be useful on whatever do next.

 

unfortunately, i never seem the ability to work on small projects, only gigantic ones. though i'm still unsure of my decision

[ludo_si]

super, the FX with particles. it is very rare, continuous!

 

Gratien

[Darkwing]

well, i scrapped the exploding planet/meteor shot, it was at 40% on the first frame and was calculating over 24 hours for the whole render to be complete. I'm not that patient, so It's replaced with this nice shot of the horsehead nebula. Anyways, in about a week, you should get to see the whole finished sequence which will be the first 2 1/2 minutes of the episode!

[Darkwing]

this will be a killer render in HD (this singe frame took nearly 4 minutes in VGA format) but I think it's cool enough to wait for (as long as it' not too much more then 7 hours) but here's a nebula based on the NGC7293, Helix Nebula:

 

[Darkwing]

ok, scrapping the nebula idea, for the shot i had of it zooming in, when it takes up about 1/2 of the screen, it takes 30 min to render per shot, so i'm not gonna let it take an hour per frame by the time it takes up the whole screen.

[steve392]

Couldn't you use it in a coposite and just render it once ,Just thinking ,probably not possible or youd have thought of it

[Darkwing]

you mean like make it a still pic. problem is that the particles flux and the camera goes through the nebula to reveal the actor's name on the other side. i just skipped it and continued with zooming through the solar system

[pixelplucker]

You can make your nebula as a backdrop, I did that ages ago for a video game that fizzled out because the client got deported but enough about the boring off track blabber.

I used the photoslop clouds filter on different layers and colorized them with Hue and Saturation and make it into a spheric map that was on a sphere around my scene.

If you need to zip around and want to keep them in the distance just attach it to the camera but keep the orientation constant.

[Darkwing]

only thing is i was hoping to go through the nebula, but that;s ok, i've already gone past that shot and moved on to uranus instead

[Jeetman]

I think it looks great Darkwing.

 

quick question about your rendering. Are you rendering your whole project in one shot? If so, you can actually speed your process up quite a bit if you rendered out as TGA's using several instances of A:M and assemble your shots in a video editing program like Vegas or A:M can do it too.

 

If you have a single frame that takes 4 minutes to render and say your rendering is going to take you about 7 hours then you're planning on rendering approximately 105 frames.

 

OK, so if you render the whole project in one render, it takes 7 hours but if you break it up and render to TGA's in sets of frames with instances of A:M all running simultaneously, then you cut your render time down substantially.

 

105 frames - 4 mins per frame - one render = 7 hours

 

105 frames - 4 mins per frame - render 5 frames using 25 A:M instances simultaneously = 25 mins

 

Make sure to render your shots with sequential numbers (I.E space0 for 1st instance of 5 frames, space6 for 2nd, etc)

 

The only limitation would be your computer. You need a good processor with ample memory and a good video card to run this many instances. But you could still cut your time using less instances.

 

105 frames - 4 instances - 1 hour and 45 minutes (much faster than 7 hours).

 

You'd then assemble your frames and add your sound in your editing program and render your finished work.

 

You can also do it in A:M but I'm not sure how long it would take to do the final render. I'd think though that because all you'd be rendering would be a layer sequence, lighting and added sound, that it would take less time than the total 7 hours.

 

Here's a way you could do it in A:M:

 

After you have rendered all your shots to TGA's, open a new project (make sure to save your existing project)

 

import your TGA shots as sequential images.

 

open a new choreograpy.

Delete the rim and the ground plane.

create a new layer using the 1st image (I.E space0)

adjust the camera so it has no angle and adjust the layer so it is slightly outside the camera's field

do a quick render test to determine if you need to adjust the lighting

Import your sounds and position them

Do final render

 

George