Nautilus animation short

[Eric2575]

Well, I'm getting some new found respect for feature length animations and what it takes to render them. My small Nautilus animation is at 92% and has been rendering all night - 15:21 hours so far. It's only 640x240 but the light reflections, water reflections, etc, are really taking a render toll. 7 seconds long = 18 hours render time on my computer Still need to run a wake and splash animation to composite it with the main track. I'm really happy with the way it looks so far though. Again, I can't say enough about Mark's fantastic work he's done with the ocean generator. I shudder to think how much extra processing time it would take to render this with displacement mapping for the waves!?

 

I probably won't finish this until tomorrow due to the extra track I need to render and a bit of post work. It will be worth it though. Stay tuned.

 

Eric Camden

[steve392]

Looking forward to it Eric

[TheSpleen]

I have rendered some clips that have taken 48 hours to render.

[Eric2575]

It just finished rendering. Now for the post work, music and sounds.

[TheSpleen]

looking forward to it!

[Tralfaz]

OOOOOHHHH... It's the next day now, and I can hardly wait to see the animation!

 

Looking forward to seeing it Eric.

 

Al

[Eric2575]

Sorry guys, it will have to wait until tomorrow. I dug out my copy of Adobe Premiere and thought I could just whip out the movie, but...have to familiarize myself with the program all over again. It's been a long time since I used it. Also have to re-render about 20 frames since one of the lights drifted away from where it should be. I have to say, it looks pretty good though. I will have it done by tomorrow evening, promise

 

Eric

[Eric2575]

Geez, no wonder I don't do many animations...Last night I wanted to pan the camera in the Ocean chor and had to move the ocean rig in order to keep the distance equal. Well, I don't think the Ocean rig likes being moved. As soon as I started moving it, the rig did some really weird contortions. Refresh did not help and undo didn't fix the weirdness. I shut down AM, but when I opened it up again, every object in the chor lined up on the x/y axis facing the same direction. Really weird! All my actions, chor or otherwise were gone, as well as all keys and frames. It's like some OCD Thom went into the chor and cleaned house, lining everything up.

 

Not all was lost, however, since I still had my original sequenced jpgs saved. It's not what I wanted to post, but I did promise to post something today. Now the last hurdle...the compiled animation is 9 seconds long at 640x240 and weights in at a whopping 21MB. I'll reduce the jpgs in PS and recompile. Be right back.

[Darkwing]

ahhh, the fresh scent of adobe in the morning, making file sizes 4 times larger than they need to be

[Eric2575]

Reducing the images in PS did the trick. This is just very basic, no camera movement or other additions yet. More to come.

 

Matt, if you read this, what settings did you use for your animation and how long did it take to render? Did you save to movie or jpg? If jpg, did you use AM to stitch it? Too many questions, too little time...

 

 

Nautilus clip

[Shelton]

Very cool Eric

 

Steve

[Eric2575]

[itsjustme]

Looks cool so far, Eric! Moving that fast in the water, a path of spray would help sell it.

[williamgaylord]

Nice to see your Nautilus in motion!

[robcat2075]

I like that! The underwater light effect is very good.

 

I agree some spray and splash would plus that. Not easy to do.

[TheSpleen]

Great job on the lights!!!!!!!!!!

[Tralfaz]

That looks great Eric. Well worth the wait.

 

Al

[NancyGormezano]

Reducing the images in PS did the trick. This is just very basic, no camera movement or other additions yet. More to come.

 

Did you save to movie or jpg? If jpg, did you use AM to stitch it?

 

Nice clip !

 

You can use A:M to reduce/change size of your images - and stitch together and compress, as well as change the timing, add sound (who needs premiere?)

 

If you have a sequence of images as jpgs, or tgas, import the image sequence into A:M(rt click images, import animation, select first image in sequence in file dialog - make sure image sequence option is checked in dialog box)

 

1) start a new chor

2) turn off ground plane

3) rt click camera - new/rotoscope - select the image sequence

3) set the resolution of camera - to desired size (to reduced size, or any size, any aspect ratio). Can also set timing of frames, change the frame rate, etc

4) set your render options to a mov - choose animation compression method for no compression (h264 is good for compressed)

5) render away (final 1 pass, no shadows, no reflections, no nada, etc)

[Darkwing]

unfortunately, AM can only add WAV files, like the largest audio file format known to the human race.

[steve392]

Yea well worth the wait,that lighting looks great in the water and the water looks great aswell.Nice job Eric

[John Bigboote]

Looking good Eric! Lately, I've been rendering sequences to a 'best' JPEG sequence, unless I need the alpha. JPEGS look just fine and use up SO much less disc space. My Ocean renders have averaged about 3-4 minutes per frame at a 9 multipass.

[Darkwing]

I use BMP, but that's because of the issues I have with AM integrating with OS10.5.8 , I can't access the Set function for JPG images, so I use BMPs

[Eric2575]

Thank you for the comments everyone.

 

Nancy, I really appreciate the breakdown of using AM for doing this. I did it a long time ago and forgot the steps. Thank you

 

Chris - Since I also want to add sound, what compression or format do you recommend? Software for audio?

 

Matt: the frames for this took about 9 minutes for the ocean before the Nautilus comes into the frames with no multipass. That seems a bit high compared to your times with 9x multi? Another strange thing, when the Nautilus is in full view, the render per frame jumps to about 13 minutes, then towards the end, when the ship leaves the view completely, I would have expected the time to come down again, but it didn't, at least not back to 9 minutes. I think the last frame also took about 12 minutes. Well, I'm gonna cut into that time a bit by doing something creative. I'll post the results when they're in. BTW, my system is an Intel duo core 6600 2.40Ghz with 2GB of ram and a GeForce 7950 GT video card. AM V.15.0i

[Eric2575]

Can someone give me an idea of how to tone down the "orient like" constraint? I constrained the camera to one of the wave bones for secondary motion, but it's a bit much. I just need to get about 20% of the motion that I am actually getting. I tried playing with "enforcement", but when I change that, the camera starts to rotate. I just want a bit of up and down movement to simulate being on the waves.

[HomeSlice]

To keep the camera from rotating, either set keyframes for it, or constrain the camera to Aim At (and possibly Roll Like) something, such as a null.

[Darkwing]

you can lower how much a constraint works on something by clicking on the constraint in the PWS and then setting the Tolerance I think it is, or something along those lines to a lower number. As for audio, I generally use MP3 at 44.1KHZ and 128kbps or higher. Any editing program for the most part will import and use MP3s. It's one of the few universal formats out there

[John Bigboote]

Can someone give me an idea of how to tone down the "orient like" constraint? I constrained the camera to one of the wave bones for secondary motion, but it's a bit much. I just need to get about 20% of the motion that I am actually getting. I tried playing with "enforcement", but when I change that, the camera starts to rotate. I just want a bit of up and down movement to simulate being on the waves.

 

 

I think you need to rethink your camera's constraints... instead of using an Orient Like to one of the wavy bones...use a translate to- to one of the up-down bones, and then set the enforcement much lower, like maybe at 7% or so...

[Eric2575]

My bad, I did use "translate to", but when I change the enforcement from the default, the camera moves toward the "translate to" bone??

[NancyGormezano]

How about using an aim at constraint for the camera to some bone/null that is in the ocean rig model. Then you can modify/animate the enforcement of the "aim at" as well. Can use that constraint in combo with a "translate to" some bone in rig (that enforcement stays at 100%).

 

I am assuming you are wanting some camera movement that will make us all puke?

 

And then there always is hand animating - Brute force gives you exactly what you need.

[HomeSlice]

My bad, I did use "translate to", but when I change the enforcement from the default, the camera moves toward the "translate to" bone??

 

You may have to activate the Compensate Mode button before you change the enforcement value.

[Eric2575]

Please bear with me in my quest to make the forum puke, but...the camera is aiming at the submarine, what will the "aim at" constraint to a bone in the ocean mesh do in terms of giving me the puke factor motion I so desperately need?

 

Holmes: I always make sure the compensate button is on before I use constraints. It's still not working

 

I just want the camera to move up and down in synch with the ocean mesch, just not to that degree, and be able to pan and view whatever.

[mtpeak2]

You can try adjusting the offsets in the "aim at" constraint after you adjust the "translate to" enforcement.

 

If that doesn't work, try deleting the "aim at" constraint, make your adjustments to the "translate to" constraint, then reapply the "aim at" constraint once you are happy with the up and down movement.

 

Just a note, the "translate to" constraint should come before an "aim at" constraint in the PWS. This way the camera knows its starting position before it aims at an object.

[robcat2075]

I just want the camera to move up and down in synch with the ocean mesch,

 

 

This sounds like a surface constraint. Perhaps at less than 100% enforcement.

[Eric2575]

I am still totally clueless what the "aim at" constraint does in regards to moving the camera in synch with the waves? I want to be able to point the camera anywhere in the chor, not just at one bone on the ocean mesh. Again, I know practically nothing of these matters...now ask me about mechanical modeling

 

Robert: I thought of that also and tried to implement it, but couldn't get that to work either. The bones in the ocean mesh move up an down nicely, how do I make the camera bone move the same way, only at about 20%?

[mtpeak2]

Sorry, thought you used an aim at constraint to the sub.

[HomeSlice]

OK, delete all the constraints and keys from the camera.

On frame 0, position it where you want it and aim it where you want.

Make the Translate and Rotate channels for the camera default to Zero Slope interpolation.

Create a new "Translate To" constraint to constrain the camera to the wave bone. (with Compensate Mode ON)

Set the enforcement to 20%.

What happens?

[Eric2575]

Did everything you said, then, with compensate "on", as soon as I touch "Enforcement", the camera starts to move. At enforcement 100 the camera stays put, but as I move enforcement toward "0", the camera moves toward the bone. At "0" it sits atop of the water on top of the bone. "Compensate" is on during all of this.

 

So I tried another avenue. I put in 10%enforcement and let the camera jump to it's new position near the "translate to" bone. The I went to "top" view and tried to drag the camera back to where it was at 100% enforcement - it won't let me. I select the camera, try to drag it backwards, it move a little bit and then springs back to it's new bone position. This really can't be this difficult, can it?

[mtpeak2]

Set the enforcement before you pick a target.

[mtpeak2]

So I tried another avenue. I put in 10%enforcement and let the camera jump to it's new position near the "translate to" bone. The I went to "top" view and tried to drag the camera back to where it was at 100% enforcement - it won't let me. I select the camera, try to drag it backwards, it move a little bit and then springs back to it's new bone position. This really can't be this difficult, can it?

Adjust the translation offsets, in the constraint, to reposition the camera.

[Eric2575]

"Set the enforcement before you pick a target" did that, still jumped. "Adjust the translation offsets, in the constraint, to reposition the camera" did that too. That worked until I tried to move the camera again, then it jumped right back to the bone.

 

I really appreciate your guys help, but I'm taking way too much time trying to figure this out. I'll take Nancy's brute force suggestion and do it by hand and be done with it.

[HomeSlice]

I think this is a bug. I'm not even using Mark's ocean model.

If anyone can recreate this, it would be appreciated.

 

Create a model with one bone ("bone 1") pointing straight up.

Create an Action with the model.

On frame 0, bone1 Z translation is 0

On frame 12, bone1 Z translation is 25

On frame 24, bone1 Z translation is 0

Create a chor

Drag the model into the chor

Drag the Action onto the model.

Constrain the Camera to Translate To "bone 1" in the model.

Set the Enforcement for the constraint to 20 (or any value except 0 or 100)

It does strange things...

[mtpeak2]

As Holmes said, this is starting to sound like a bug, it shouldn't be this difficult. I know I've done this before with the rig, but it was in v13 or v14.

[NancyGormezano]

I think this is a bug. I'm not even using Mark's ocean model.

 

I also tried NOT using ocean rig - Just tried in chor constraining camera to a null with translate only, and found strange behavior when enforcement was changed.

 

I also found that when the enforcement went to 0 (linear enforcement) - then the camera went back to its original position (if I had originally key framed camera position, and had started out with no compensate when originally constrained, and null and camera had same xyz). But right before enforcement became 0 - the camera was translating to somewhere else - was not obvious what computation was being done

 

(tried in 15e and 15jplus)

[robcat2075]

Robert: I thought of that also and tried to implement it, but couldn't get that to work either. The bones in the ocean mesh move up an down nicely, how do I make the camera bone move the same way, only at about 20%?

 

The small bone is surface constrained to the curvy shape. The bone above it is "translate to" constrained to the small bone, with 25 % enforcement:

 

semifloater.mov

 

 

SemiFloater.prj

[Eric2575]

Awesome example Robert, thank you.

 

Did someone say BUG??? Thank goodness I'm not that inept and you guys/gal were able to reproduce this

[Eric2575]

I'd like to add some billowing fog to the scene. Since I can't do a 3 letter search, I'd like some suggestions for animated fog. The ocean, then a dense cloud of fog rolls in, out of which emerges the Nautilus. What's the best way to accomplish this?

[itsjustme]

A search for clouds, maybe? Or smoke?

[Darkwing]

volumetrics create some cool and fairly fast rendering fog. They're my primary choice and they're very easy to set up

[TheSpleen]

I'd like to add some billowing fog to the scene. Since I can't do a 3 letter search, I'd like some suggestions for animated fog. The ocean, then a dense cloud of fog rolls in, out of which emerges the Nautilus. What's the best way to accomplish this?

Ask johnl3d,

He can tell ya.

[HomeSlice]

Making a dense cloud of fog "rolling in" might be a challenge. First I would get the "already rolled in" fog looking like you want it, and if you still need something else, work on the "rolling in" bit.

Two ways you could get an animated fog clip (I'm sure there are more ways):

Apply a Fractal Sum material to a flat patch which is oriented vertically in the Model window and animate the Z Translation of the material. In the material, use black and white. Then use a Photoshop action to copy each frame into its own alpha channel (make sure its saves as "32 bit"). Import the image sequence into AM and apply it as a fog image. Voila, animated fog.

Or, apply some black and white smoke sprites to a patch and animate them.

 

For the "fog rolling in" effect, that's a tough one. Maybe create a cylinder volumetric object, like Darkwing suggested, and apply turbulence to it and animate the turbulence.

 

When you figure it out, please share with the rest of us