Test Shots for Short Film #01

First topic message reminder :

Hi guys, just wanted to share some composites for a short film that we are working on..

3dsMax using default hair and fur (characters are rendered in scanline), environment BG in Vray, composites/color corrections done in After Effects. All elements in 3D (a few planters taken from preexisting evermotion libraries).

The unofficial trailer:

Gorillas Trailer from Celes G on Vimeo.

Backgrounds:







Gorilla Shots

ibang usapan na to Sir celes napapanganga ako.... ilike your DOF After Effects po ba to?

Ot: pinakakamusta ka ni willy dito sa abudhabi astig daw trabaho...

AUSTRIA wrote:ibang usapan na to Sir celes napapanganga ako.... ilike your DOF After Effects po ba to?

Ot: pinakakamusta ka ni willy dito sa abudhabi astig daw trabaho...

yes sir! thanks sa comment, after effects nga ung dof, using vrayzepth pass. pakisabi ke ka willy kumusta rin, im online if he wants to chat more

celes wrote:

f-41 wrote:damm!!!so you mean sir its an acutal project talaga?kala ko trip trip lang.....and for the 2sec preview how many frames did you manage to go? right now im doing a small animation project and my output is 1000x750 with 30 frames per sec.. a 1 frame runs atleast 2 to 5 minutes which i dont know if its normal or not...and my frame for the 1 camera scene is 3500. to sum it all nasa 4 to 5 days na araw, normal ba yun?

what i see sa inyong output matatagal sya....but its very clear and sharp.........

yes sir actual project 24fps.

ung output mo is still 4:3 aspect ratio sir. ok yan. semi HD ang size. 1 frame 2-5 minutes? ano ang animation? saka 3500 frames for 1 camera - roughly 2 minutes iisang camera lang? anong project yan sir, pasilip

yung animation ko sir interior scene sya. 3500 frames kasi isang camera lang ginamit ko. gusto ng client kasi isang cut ng animation per floor. so 3 floors ang ginagawa ko. yung isang floor nga 3500 frames. almost 2mins nga yun cut na yun. pero yung concern ko yung rendering kasi nga for 1 frame nasa 2 to 3 mins isang frame. binabaan ko na lahat ng subdiv. yung dynamic limit tinaas ko na rin tapos nag save na rin ako ng LC at IR for animation. kaya nag aalala ako kung normal yung render time ko. by the way PNG ko sine save sir e to compose it sa AE.

celes wrote:

yes sir! thanks sa comment, after effects nga ung dof, using vrayzepth pass. pakisabi ke ka willy kumusta rin, im online if he wants to chat more

[right]

you mean sir ena add nyo rin yung vray zdepth at the same time rendering the whole set? so bali 2 file ang marerender nya di ba? so cool!!!di ko naisip yan then compose sa AE but output nyo from max......

norman ung 2-3 minutes per frame is quite fast. Normally hindi bumababa ang frames namin sa 10 mins per frame. That's why kelangan me renderfarm ka if you need to render animations tapos kung minimum output niyo is hd, rendertimes are longer.

Sa zdepth just go to the render dialog box under render elements, scroll through the list then select vrayzdepth. Kelangan i set mo ung min and max distances (min value is the distance from your camera to the focus point while max value is the distance when the focus is weakest) though pag naka default max camera ka.

celes wrote:norman ung 2-3 minutes per frame is quite fast. Normally hindi bumababa ang frames namin sa 10 mins per frame. That's why kelangan me renderfarm ka if you need to render animations tapos kung minimum output niyo is hd, rendertimes are longer.

Sa zdepth just go to the render dialog box under render elements, scroll through the list then select vrayzdepth. Kelangan i set mo ung min and max distances (min value is the distance from your camera to the focus point while max value is the distance when the focus is weakest) though pag naka default max camera ka.

WHoa!!!!thanks sa info sir. atleast i have an idea na!!!though matagal normal pa pala yun!!!!

O.T......pwede ba OJT dyan?!!!!wahaha......

haha sure norman why not. ojt nga lang pang estudyante diba?

here's an HD test

Gorilla Test Rig 02 from Celes G on Vimeo.

updates

anggaling naman nito

Nice One Celes!

Galing ng treatment ng backgrounds. I understand that this is a work-in-progress so I'd write some points you might want to consider during the final pass:

1. I'm looking at the movie (HD TEST) in the last post of yours in this thread and I feel the fur is kind of mataba, perhaps tone down the radius of the strand or add more segments to add a bit of curl so they do not look thorn-like. The feel of the second image in orignal post is superb in my opinion.

2. Assuming its an environment in the wild, the grass might look better with random lengths rather than something looking well trimmed and maintained.

3. Animation, there's a few pops specially when the gorilla lifts his arms around frame 40 or so, adding more length to that animation segment (lift >land) will make it look more natural. I also noticed that the rig effectors of the hands were located somewhere along the wrist, I suggest moving that to the knuckles (if your using biped, the effectors position is animatable as well, good for weight shifts) so that you can add a bit of rotation from the wrist down evident in the way four legged creatures (gorillas in this example) supports their weight during a walk or a run. The spine might need more keyframes to avoid making them look stiff and braced.

I have no comment whatsoever with regards to the rendering quality, its looking goody as it is now.

Nevertheless I'm envious, it's seldom you'd find clients paying for work that's challenging and more fun!

Goodluck.

v_wrangler wrote:Nice One Celes!

Galing ng treatment ng backgrounds. I understand that this is a work-in-progress so I'd write some points you might want to consider during the final pass:

1. The fur is kind of mataba, perhaps tone down the radius of the strand or add more segments to add a bit of curl so they do not look thorn-like.

2. Assuming its an environment in the wild, the grass might look better with random lengths rather than something looking well trimmed and maintained.

3. Animation, there's a few pops specially when the gorilla lifts his arms around frame 40 or so, adding more length to that animation segment (lift >land) will make it look more natural. I also noticed that the rig effectors of the hands were located somewhere along the wrist, I's suggest moving that to the knuckles so that you can add a bit of rotation from the wrist down evident in the way four legged creatures (gorillas in this example) supports their weight during a walk or a run. The spine might need more keyframes to avoid making them look stiff.

nevertheless I'm envious, it's seldom you'd find clients paying for work that's challenging and more fun!

Goodluck.

ah the master himself - all points absorbed and processed roy, here is something to discuss about:

1. we are actually struggling with this. initially we used buffer for the render settings in hair and fur but they flicker in the animations. so our solution was to use geometry instead - however the tradeoff here was finding a decent fur count (30,000 on each gorilla alone) without losing memory (anything excessive doesnt render due to lack of RAM). further we decided to lower the fur count without making the mesh look panot - hence a thicker hair root. nevertheless we will continue to experiment and hopefully we got lucky with a particular setting that has a more natural looking fur (unless you have any further suggestions on this matter)

2. noted, pagagalitan ko ang mga guys about this. (hmm ako nga pala gumawa ng grass hehe)

3. yup they are in the wrist - not the knuckles - the intention initially was to hide those by placing tall grass blades will take that advice on adding more inbetweens sa keyframes to make the movement look more natural.

mejo carried away kami rito to be honest - this was intended as a 3d toon effect but somehow it evolved into this but we enjoy the challenge thanks for the valuable tips sensei!

by the way - how do say "curious gorilla" in japanese?

celes wrote:by the way - how do say "curious gorilla" in japanese?

Curious George? Theres a lot of ways to japanize curiosity and its hard to translate to a single word. In Japan, curious george for example is called Hitomane (mimicking human) Kosaru (monkey). Curiosity can also be translated as "full of interest" or Kyoumi ga aru (have interest or I'm curious). So I wonder what word might be appropriate...

Hmm, why not just katakanize it?

hee. i tried googling and they always give me this kanji stuff. so katakanizing is the trick eh? will try it out. thanks man!

celes wrote:
1. we are actually struggling with this. initially we used buffer for the render settings in hair and fur but they flicker in the animations. so our solution was to use geometry instead - however the tradeoff here was finding a decent fur count (30,000 on each gorilla alone) without losing memory (anything excessive doesnt render due to lack of RAM). further we decided to lower the fur count without making the mesh look panot - hence a thicker hair root. nevertheless we will continue to experiment and hopefully we got lucky with a particular setting that has a more natural looking fur (unless you have any further suggestions on this matter)

You got me thinking there!.... Some suggestions:
1. maybe a flat hair.
2. Can you map those hair geometries with opacity mapped strands? Also try if you can use flat planes instead of cylinders. Also a falloff on the edges can give that soft hairy look.
3. Do you have hair textures on the skin underneath the hair? Sometimes they can help patch the panot look.

Don't know about the other sequences, but sometimes it helps to divide the hair approach per shot, for long shots would texture maps suffice?

Goodluck!

For the flickering, I would assume thats a sampling problem... both because of the fine details and the shadows (maybe you've got low shadow samplings- assuming its shadow maps)

If all fails, I'd probably use vray to render because vrays sampling is way better than the scanline. If you are are bent on using sanline, maybe try using Global samplers to force the renderer to take a second pass and refine fine details...

If the gorillas on a separate pass, maybe render on a larger size then scale down in post?

v_wrangler wrote:

celes wrote:
1. we are actually struggling with this. initially we used buffer for the render settings in hair and fur but they flicker in the animations. so our solution was to use geometry instead - however the tradeoff here was finding a decent fur count (30,000 on each gorilla alone) without losing memory (anything excessive doesnt render due to lack of RAM). further we decided to lower the fur count without making the mesh look panot - hence a thicker hair root. nevertheless we will continue to experiment and hopefully we got lucky with a particular setting that has a more natural looking fur (unless you have any further suggestions on this matter)

You got me thinking there!.... Some suggestions:
1. maybe a flat hair.
2. Can you map those hair geometries with opacity mapped strands? Also try if you can use flat planes instead of cylinders. Also a falloff on the edges can give that soft hairy look.
3. Do you have hair textures on the skin underneath the hair? Sometimes they can help patch the panot look.

Goodluck!

1. - might work
2. - true, this will definitely save a lot of time and resources for the renders - will try it out
3. - yes there are textures underneath

without fur

v_wrangler wrote:For the flickering, I would assume thats a sampling problem... both because of the fine details and the shadows (maybe you've got low shadow samplings- assuming its shadow maps)

If all fails, I'd probably use vray to render because vrays sampling is way better than the scanline. If you are are bent on using sanline, maybe try using Global samplers to force the renderer to take a second pass and refine fine details...

If the gorillas on a separate pass, maybe render on a larger size then scale down in post?

im already considering that - to render in vray instead. the sizes of the raw renders are in 2560x1440 already, then scaled down to 1280x720 - at least in our tests, there is very little flicker. we use area shadows for scanline - the shadow maps definitely flicker. we cant go for raytracing cos it's a rendertime nightmare.

celes wrote:

v_wrangler wrote:For the flickering, I would assume thats a sampling problem... both because of the fine details and the shadows (maybe you've got low shadow samplings- assuming its shadow maps)

If all fails, I'd probably use vray to render because vrays sampling is way better than the scanline. If you are are bent on using sanline, maybe try using Global samplers to force the renderer to take a second pass and refine fine details...

If the gorillas on a separate pass, maybe render on a larger size then scale down in post?

im already considering that - to render in vray instead. the sizes of the raw renders are in 2560x1440 already, then scaled down to 1280x720 - at least in our tests, there is very little flicker. we use area shadows for scanline - the shadow maps definitely flicker. we cant go for raytracing cos it's a rendertime nightmare.

The shadow maps will flicker if you have less lights and less shadow map size. Sometimes (if you're simulating dome lighting) having lots of lights with smaller map size can compensate and remove the flickers). So its really a test>render>test scenario.
Area shadows are basically Raytraced shadows so it helps to nudge the default raytraced shadow Quadtree Depth to 10. The default seven is an overkill and usually the culprit for long rendering times for raytraced shadow intensive scenes.

My approach has always been to get rid of using area shadows ( I can get that similar look via AO anyways) and use (as much as possible, a single light source - usually a Direct line for the keylight.

Am not sur eit that works for you but thats has been my process for quite sometime. Either I mimic the ambient via E-light (domelighting fake in scanline) or with vray's dome light or ambient light. Both of which of course, uses a single keylight or Direct lights to highlight my sun.

I hope that gives you some ideas.

thanks for the valuable tips vertex - the guys are doing their experiments now. i think we will still go for the scanline + AO output, at least im confident that flickering would be minimized thanks roy! will post updates

Lookin for a kong avatar right now to match that frakin' godzirra...

Informative posts here, although i really don;t understand any of the stuff mentioned, or barely even has a clue, this is definitely a good read.

Apologies Ed, I'd try to explain again if they sounded so cryptic *D

v_wrangler wrote:Apologies Ed, I'd try to explain again if they sounded so cryptic *D

Not at all sir v..i'll just re-read everything, and do some researching online...

The best......astig nito ...

hmm ill post the composites so you can have a clearer idea on how it's done ed - render muna