Student Demo, Render quality?

[louis.cho]

I am a student in a 3D animation school in Quebec City (Qc, Canada) and I will soon begin to work on my Demo Reel who will be (as you expect) specialized in architectural visualisation. I already have skill in architecture domain, I have a degree in naval architecture so I know Autocad quite well.

 

I was wondering what is the level of quality of a good student demo reel. Is Global illumination and complexes raytraced materials are a standard? I ask because I don't have access to a big render farm or heavy render server. I want to make a 'good work' of 60/90 sec of animation - and not extend it to a 'boring work' of 120/150 sec. I use mental ray and it's easy to have unpossible render time like 5 hours per frame (60sec*28fps=1680 frames=8400 hours).

 

Surely I must to master faking GI with multiples light or there is a trick? What is the part of importance of a render in a demo?

 

My conclusion was to make a animation with 'simple' light system to keep render time to a minimum and add 2 or 3 still images of the scene with complexes GI and FG.

 

What do you think?

[mahorela]

I guess that you have to do some trade offs in terms of quality to render time, most of us do in one way or another, we don't all have access to renderfarms etc. I also think that employers prefer to see simple scenes that are lit well and rendered well as opposed to detailed scenes that are not so convincing. I think that 5 hours per frame is a little high, perhaps you could modify your lighting and rendering techniques (and material settings) to better suit your hardware. But at the end of the say I would look to do simpler scenes, cut the poly count but keep the GI and the general quality.

[ronel]

the issue is how big is your render scene, do it have multiple model and meshes? to render a frame in 5 hours is quite long. modify your model, reduce if necessary, avoid to much raytracing, just focus on the object you want to show in your animation. theres a lot of techniques, but unless we see your scene and model even a snap shot, we cant tell you how. try to post some snap shot, and we help you out.

[Jim Mann]

Show the best of what you do at the best level of quality that you can. If you need 5 hours per frame of animation then you have a problem. In fact if you can't render a frame of animation in a few minutes then you may struggle commercially. It may be that you just need to refine what you are trying to animate in terms of settings and content.

 

Sometimes, it is good to see the basics done very well. If you can model well, don't be afraid to show a hidden wireframe. If you can light well, show a still with a pan. Show work that makes you look employable.

 

JM

[louis.cho]

I surely exagerate a little with 5 hours! maybe one but even there it's way too much. I just wanted to figure out what kind of content make a demo a good demo. I didn't not choose any plans at this time, I check magazine and try to get inspiration. I also want to try to get a plan from a 'real' architect it is possible.

 

For my animation, I will try to find a very simple plans an not apply too much of complexes and raytrace materials. My modeling skill are good enought to keep polys at the minimum level. The challenge will be to control all these Mental Ray settings and use the right lights.

 

Second questions: some of my teachers wants that I make a complete walkthrough of a house(camera pass every place of the house without transition). Is all this will make my scene way too big for nothing? For my part, I wanted to keep the camera in one or two rooms and make separated sequences. What do you think?

 

My school is more oriented in games field so the ressources know just a little bit of this industry. I why this forum is my gold mine!

[Devin Johnston]

Doing a walk through in every room of a house is kind of ridiculous especially if each room is rather plane. If you’re looking to impress Architects then you should demonstrate a variety of different projects, exterior and interior. These don't need to the photo real but they should have good lighting and material work and they should be interesting not just a standard tilt up concrete building. I'd make it at least 60 seconds long and make sure you sink your video to a good sound tract that is relevant to the piece you’re creating, this may take some looking into.

[louis.cho]

Thanks for the advice Maxter. I will focus on that. I will try to find 2 or 3 plans of differents and a huge lot of reference pictures. I hope find all this soon. I'll keep you inform.

[Mario Pende]

I am a student in a 3D animation school in Quebec City (Qc, Canada) and I will soon begin to work on my Demo Reel who will be (as you expect) specialized in architectural visualisation. I already have skill in architecture domain, I have a degree in naval architecture so I know Autocad quite well.

 

I was wondering what is the level of quality of a good student demo reel. Is Global illumination and complexes raytraced materials are a standard? I ask because I don't have access to a big render farm or heavy render server. I want to make a 'good work' of 60/90 sec of animation - and not extend it to a 'boring work' of 120/150 sec. I use mental ray and it's easy to have unpossible render time like 5 hours per frame (60sec*28fps=1680 frames=8400 hours).

 

Surely I must to master faking GI with multiples light or there is a trick? What is the part of importance of a render in a demo?

 

My conclusion was to make a animation with 'simple' light system to keep render time to a minimum and add 2 or 3 still images of the scene with complexes GI and FG.

 

What do you think?

 

 

If you want to make animations use Lightscape.

[Arnold Gallardo]

Or find a way to 'bake' your Global illumination (Monte-Carlo based) computation into textures. Not all 3d apps can do this very well. As much as Radiosity is viewed nowadays as an 'old' technology, hybrids that accelerate it to exist and most computations anyway deal with direct luminaire and indirect illumination environments with minimal directional diffuse situations unless you really dealing with exotic material that needs this capability.

 

I think that your undertsanding of light quality plus photographic/cinematic eye would count more in making a scene believable as well as acuurate. You have to remember that ALL render engines are geared towards mimicking the camera/film combination when rendering out images. Special effects like bokeh and optical artifacts being incorporated inot render engines are part of this trend. You have to 'see' what you are 'looking at'.

[Jim Mann]

some of my teachers wants that I make a complete walkthrough of a house(camera pass every place of the house without transition)....? For my part, I wanted to keep the camera in one or two rooms and make separated sequences. What do you think?

 

I think that your tutors haven't thought this through at all. I have a friend who can't watch these types of animation because he gets motion sickness. Seperated but linked sequences are much more effective - and interesting. The only types of houses that would suit a continuous camera sweep would be something like Phillip Johnsons Glass House

 

http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/images/FinalProject/JohnsonHousePlan.jpg

 

i.e. very open plan. But even then, would you want to see inside the loo?

 

JM

[FlytE]

Im not sure if you mean your tutors have suggested you do this walkround for your portfolio, or whether is some kind of class exercise. If it is the latter, then it is probably a good chance to experiment with some camera work.

 

Although i agree that cutscenes are more interesting in the long run than a straight walkaround animation, you can learn alot from trying to do it all in just one nonstop animation ...curve paths, camera tilting, motion blur, direction of viewing vs direction of travel etc... all the sort of things that can conveniently be avoided with linked sqeuences.