new animation project

[ZFact]

Ive almost secured a fairly big animation job... iv done a few

fly around type ones before which were very basic... this

one is going to require movement within the scene also.

 

I have never used any video editing equipment and dont

really have the time to start learning for this project, so

whatever runs of the end of the renderer will be the final

piece.

 

Is this madness or can it be done... i need general advice

and any tips on creating good animations without editing

and also how to apply animated water to the scene and

any advice on keeping the render times down as much

as possible.

 

I'll be using FR2 to render out the frames.

 

Thanks in advance

[Ernest Burden III]

Perhaps you should break all that down to more specific questions.

 

fr2 rendertimes are much better than AR, but the program is far from stable. You will need to do a lot of babysitting of your computers, especially if you use distributed rendering. The process runs as two passes, the first does the GI work, the second the raytracing. fr2's physical sky isn't fully functional, you may be better off with distant lights.

 

Moving water can be done with an animated texture, not hard in C4D since you would probably want to use noise, and it can be animated both in the way the pattern behaves but also in a direction.

 

You can use the STAGE object to program camera cuts into an animation. I've done that. You set up two or three cameras and cut from one to the other at a given frame, but it can be hard to work with and you will need to be familiar with the F-curves pallette and probably rely upon linear interpolation to avoid cameras flying all over the place.

 

You are better off rendering to a TIFF sequence than trying to output an animation file, but suit yourself on that one. In fact, TIFF would be the only sane choice since you will probably not be able to get fr2 to render the whole sequence without crashing. I think QuickTime will allow a crash and still have usable footage, but then you would be back to using a video editor to put them together, AND you wouldn't know which frame to pick up on. With TIFF you will by looking at the frames output folder.

 

Find a way to tell a story and do not allow your cameras to zip about at supersonic speed.

[ZFact]

cheers ernest;

anyone know of any good tutorials for beginners

[Sindala]

I totally agree with Ernest, but i guess he's one of those people who's always right, fr is too unstable for animations.

 

Also the tif sequence is the way to go, after you're done you can also change small bit's in your sequence by rendering only those frames and just replace the tif-files.

I use after effects to put together the seperate frames of the animation, if you can use photoshop than you will probably get along with ae after a day of playing with it while you wait for your renders.

 

Also if the project is big, try not to rely on gi, rendertimes get longer and longer after about 100 frames, just fake it, that's the easiest way to go. another thing i found handy was first rendering the whole thing without the AO, goes a lot faster, and you already have a product, and then render the ao in a seperate pass and put if over your animation as a screen-layer in AE.

I hope this makes any sense.

[ZFact]

Ok... the plot thickens

 

The client may want some real video footage taken of the site

then the animation layered over it to show the development in

context.

 

Im probably biting of more than i can chew but it should be a

good learning curve... Can the 2 be layered over one another in

after effects and if so how difficult is it to do given that i have

never used editing software before.

 

Surely i will need to record the real cameras point in space using

some sort of Satellite navigation system to camera match it with

the virtual camera in C4D. Is that how its done?

 

The only thing i have going for me at this stage is the client is

not in any hurry for the final product.

[manta]

Do you have funds for extra software i.e. camera matching video editing and compositing...

[ZFact]

Yeah... could probably afford around $1500.00 max

but remember im on a learning curve and need something

i will be able to learn in a week or so.

[Ernest Burden III]

Also if the project is big, try not to rely on gi, rendertimes get longer and longer after about 100 frames

 

That is quite true in AR, it gets out of hand after a dozen frames sometimes, very useless. fr2 does not suffer this problem and produces much better-looking GI faster. Only it crashes all the damned time. Pick your poison, either way you're in for some grief.

[Ernest Burden III]

never used editing software before.

Surely i will need to record the real cameras point in space using

some sort of Satellite navigation system to camera match it with

the virtual camera in C4D. Is that how its done?

 

Not if you're smart.

 

There is a really good camera-matching plugin for C4D, but its meant for stills. What you need to do is get a good fee and sub out the live-plate matching shots to someone who has the experience and tools to do it right. That's what should happen when a small studio lands a big job.

 

Camera tracking is based on known objects within a scene, not GPS data. You would have to be able to record very fine tollerance data for camera position, plus pitch roll and heading.

[AJLynn]

I've done FR2 animation (with the model and camera both animated) by working in passes, saving a GI pass per frame then rendering still image frames to make a video later (I think we used Premiere for that). Kind of a hassle but faster than GI in AR2, and if it crashes (in this case it didn't) you have your work saved. Depends on what you're doing and what kind of lighting you need, e.g. if you just want it to look nice but don't need perfect accuracy, and it's an exterior, a fakeiosity dome rig is hard to beat. With all the extra work of camera matching and compositing you might decide GI animation is too much.

[manta]

Yeah... could probably afford around $1500.00 max

but remember im on a learning curve and need something

i will be able to learn in a week or so.

 

 

Maybe you should think about hiring someone to do that for you, because not only is that not enough money to buy the required software, but then learning 2 or 3 new softwares in a week will certainly show in the end prioduct...

[ZFact]

yeah... its a tall order i know....so..... i have a video editing crew

now lined up... the people i have lined up for the job have a

background in documentary film making... not so much this type of

work.... but they are confident they can make a good job of it.

 

I can simply fire out a load of animations and they will seamlessly

merge them all together to create a flowing story. Atleast thats

the theory.

 

In reality but, they are going to jump on a helicopter and fly around

the site filming the area.... my animation somehow has to merge into there film and its

this part that is worrying me.... how do i determine where to setup

my camera's latitude/long& Alt to match their camera or vice versa.

 

Or is there an alternative way to do this and if so how?

[William Alexander]

In reality but, they are going to jump on a helicopter and fly around

the site filming the area.... my animation somehow has to merge into there film and its

this part that is worrying me.... how do i determine where to setup

my camera's latitude/long& Alt to match their camera or vice versa.

 

Or is there an alternative way to do this and if so how?

 

Dude you need matchmoving software to create a CG camera fom so your CG can be matched into the live footage. It's one thing to do a static pan...orbits of panning around a center on a path that will not be round or necessarilly at the same elevation.....it can be done manually but that's a triple learning curve.

 

 

 

 

Training for this type of work... www.pixelcorps.com You get access, "personal use only", software and quite a number of decent tutorials to get you started.

 

Well it's fairly easy to do once you have a grasp of the subject matter and software.

 

You need some help-info, drop me a PM and I'll do what I can

 

WDA

[AJLynn]

And helicopters have a pretty erratic movement unless it's a damn good pilot on a calm day... this is getting pretty involved. Can you use the helicopter budget to shop out modeling the surroundings and do the whole thing in animation?

[ZFact]

its not really an option Andrew as its a really scenic rural area and modelling

it would not do it any justice... i dont think... if it was in an urban area

i would definitley go down that road. the client is also pretty firm on the

helicopter thing...

 

Im starting to panic!!!! iv 6 weeks to pull this of... o boy

[Ernest Burden III]

Make sure the client is firm on paying for what he's pretty firm on.

 

Now--is it that he wants some aerial shots, or needs aerial moving shots? If you get one or a few STILL shots from the air you can matte in the model and do a 'pan and scan' animation. From 1000 feet up there is very little perspective, so unless you need to spin around the building (which makes for an awful shot usually) think about the simple way.

 

If the surroundings are mostly landscape you may be able to map satellite imagery onto an accurate ground terrain.

 

Find out why the client wants what he says he wants, that will be your best indicator about how to provide an acceptable solution that won't cost a hundred thousands units of currency.

[ZFact]

Hi Guys;

can anyone tell me... when i align a car to a spline to animate

it i cannot figure out how to make the front end of the car point

in the right direct... ie.. forwards along the spline.

 

Anyone know what i have to do to make this work

 

Cheers

[manta]

just rotate it to the correct direction, make sure the animate button isn't on...

 

On a side note...don't attach the car to the spline, attach a dummy object to the spline and link the car to the dummy...

[Frosty]

There is a script I used to do this called "All wheel drive" or " 4 wheel drive" ...something like that.

[AJLynn]

The Align to Spline tag has a Tangential check box, try that. If that flips the car, put the car in a Null object, give the Null the animation tag and rotate the car relative to the Null. Another approach might be to give the car a Target tag and make the target a Null that goes ahead of the car (probably on its own path).

[ZFact]

thanks guys... this works a treat

[Frosty]

Dont forget to ramp your velocities for acceleration and deceleration.

 

Also, I hunted for the "all wheel drive" expression with no luck. It was hard to set up on a Dosch car, but once working, allowed the wheels to rotate at the same speed the car was moving and forced the front wheels to turn left or right based on direction. The only input parameter was the spline the car followed and the align to spline tag. It was great for a close up shot.

[ZFact]

Cheers, iv looked for it myself but not to worry it will prob

be a shot at distance anyway.