new animation project...want guidance

[chow choppe]

Hi everyone

 

I know this question might have been asked 100 times before but each project is different for different people and everyone doesn;t have same kind of knowledge

So here i go

 

I am starting with a new project showing some development around a water canal which is the median of a highway which has 30' roads on both sides and then the green areas

So basically they are constructing some tourist areas like food courts, motels fountains, piazzas above the water canal .

I haven't done any animation with vray before so i am a little worried about how to go about it. i know vray for stills but haven't tried my ands on animation with vray

what seetings should i keep to have fast renders because it will be like rendering a lot of frames with vray and i don't have very high speed computers with me

Also whats the best way to show water in the canal so that material of water doesn't take much time during rendering. secondly moving objects will be cars and other vehicles on the highway

how can i randomly put them to motion at different speeds. also during renderingwhat care needs to be taken for moving objects

 

Also i have to show it on a projector later so what shud be the resolution and size of frames and what fps to follow

 

so these are the questions that are coming to my mnd before actually starting it. i will be very confident once i know answers to these

and how can i show the numerous trees coming on both edges of the highway. i am not open to the idea of using too many 3d trees as it will make everything slow

So whats the best way to show it

 

and last thing that how do u people show the progress of work in an animation project for discussions or changes

 

hopefully i am not asking too many questions at the ame time

 

kindly guide me

 

thanks

[tanni]

I don't find any thing wrong this are my regular job to ( making architectural walk through) Last 1 year we are using vray as our rendering eng. Sometime we have to expending a lots of time to render ( 30 min for a single frame) but in an average we need 10-12 min per frame for DVD quality rendering.Please be specific where is your problem.Lights are at the of the tunnel. Please describe your resources. ( Workstation, Server & human resources)

[chow choppe]

The problems are listed as below

 

1.) i have never rendered an animation with vray with or without moving objects. but i read and came to know that rendering animation with or without moving objects is very different. the project i am working on will have moving cars and vehicles as its a highway. So first how to show so many cars with different speeds (not related to vray but animation ) and what method is followed for animation with vray with moving objects

 

2.) i will have trees on both sides of the highway and also above the horizon line i will see something where the highway is vanishing. Whats the best way to show that background in an animation so it looks neat durig the camera movement and just doesn't look like a simple material attached to a box

 

3.)Regarding materials, i know i won't be using too much bumps but i know reflections will take time to render so how can i reduce the rndering times in that context, as i have to show wate in the canal which is running along with the road and also window glasses of buildings

 

4.)The client hasn't given me any brief that whether he wants it for DVD, or TV , or computer buthe just said he has a presentation so i am assuming it will be on a computer. So what image size should i follow so that it doesn't loose quality.

 

These are some questions which are not giving me confidence to whether use vray or scanline renderer for this project

 

I hope i can have some answers now

 

P.S my system specs

I am rigt now just using a AMD dual core x2 4200+

2GB RAM , 256 MB PCI Express 6600GT

 

I will have another quad core of my friend for rendering later but that depends on availability so i am just counting on this machine right now

 

Thanks

 

 

Thanks

 

 

 

4.)

[chow choppe]

old thread but still looking for answers to these

now i also have a quad core 6600

[chow choppe]

no responses?

[tanni]

sorry to delay. Till you are working with that project!

 

Did you ever produce any archi. WT / animation before? If not- i think this will very pain full for you because you are doing that your self ( single person).

 

What ever try to follow few thing i believe this will reduce the pain.

 

Collect the voice script fast from your client or preparer your self.

Segment the voice with time length and make your set from voice.

LOD depends on the scene- if you are close to tree make them 3d tree.

Make your horizon using plan and map.

Moving car will animated using path follow.

[Devin Johnston]

The problems are listed as below

 

1.) i have never rendered an animation with vray with or without moving objects. but i read and came to know that rendering animation with or without moving objects is very different. the project i am working on will have moving cars and vehicles as its a highway. So first how to show so many cars with different speeds (not related to vray but animation ) and what method is followed for animation with vray with moving objects

 

You will need to use the Animation (prepass) setting in IR and if you’re using LC just set it to flythrough, which will take care of any moving objects. As for the cars you can have them attached to a line and then just vary the time it takes to travel along that line in the curve editor.

 

2.) i will have trees on both sides of the highway and also above the horizon line i will see something where the highway is vanishing. Whats the best way to show that background in an animation so it looks neat durig the camera movement and just doesn't look like a simple material attached to a box

 

You can use proxy objects of 3D trees to create your tree line; it won't affect your memory much if you do this. Otherwise you will have to map a picture of a tree line onto a plane, you can add some displacement to it to make it look more 3D but you run the risk of longer render times if you do that.

 

3.)Regarding materials, i know i won't be using too much bumps but i know reflections will take time to render so how can i reduce the rndering times in that context, as i have to show wate in the canal which is running along with the road and also window glasses of buildings

 

You can try excluding the glass and water from the GI calculations by selecting the objects right click, select vray object properties and then uncheck visible to GI. That will have an effect but beyond that I don't have any suggestions.

 

4.)The client hasn't given me any brief that whether he wants it for DVD, or TV , or computer buthe just said he has a presentation so i am assuming it will be on a computer. So what image size should i follow so that it doesn't loose quality.

 

720x480 is standard TV resolution; this is normally what I render to unless the client specifically asks for something different.

[chow choppe]

thanks maxer for the invaluable suggestions

Appreciate that

[Claudio Branch]

 

I will have another quad core of my friend for rendering later but that depends on availability so i am just counting on this machine right now

 

 

How long will your animation be and when is your deadline?

 

Given the amount of throughput you have available, it seems that your backside is hanging out in the wind my friend...

[chow choppe]

1.5 minutes

[Claudio Branch]

90 secs x 30 fps = 2700 frames

 

2700 frames x 10 min/frame = 18.75 days!

 

I have pretty fast machines at my disposal and rendering times of 10 minutes using V-Ray with GI lighting and plenty of geometry is pretty standard.

 

Trying to achieve this with one machine seems very risky...

[BrianKitts]

Trying to achieve this with one machine seems very risky...

 

I think deadline suicide is a better description....

 

I would look into online renderfarm services. For my freelance work I've used respower.com for 6 or 7 animations, their one day pass for $300 is great. You can average about 20-30 nodes most of the time, and I would recommend rendering with them if you can on tue-thur, fri-mon gets busier.

 

IMO you have enough horsepower for setting up your animations, but no where near enough to render your own animations with vray. I would probably want at least 8 dual quads before I would even consider running my own. That setup could probably get through 600-700 frames a night depending on your scene (I avg 15-20 min frames), but for a 3000 frame animation that's still risky if you have a client who loves last minute changes.

[Claudio Branch]

Don't forget the time up front you need to spend doing a bit of QA.

 

You do not want to run your animation through only to discover a litany of project quality killers:

 

artifacts due to material settings or IR/LC maps

Floating buildings, cars, entourage, etc.

Geometry collisions and/or duplicate geometry faces

Missing texture maps and/or x-ref files

 

Animation is an UNFORGIVING medium...

[Eric Sosa]

3000 frame animation usign vray as render engine with only one machine??...u most be joking .

 

either, pay for a render farm or get more quadcore machines and use DR. no displacements, materials with no glossiness & no refraction, etc.

 

after seeing the awesome vray animations shown in the "finished work" at this very forum, I have to admit that u need great machines and more then 5 working together if u want an 1.5 min "ok" animation.....to probably be made in a 2 -3 of days. need to fix renders (frames) 'cos flickering, wrong mat, wrong reflection, etc, etc?....you'r dead anyways.

 

however, good luck

[chow choppe]

I think deadline suicide is a better description....

 

I would look into online renderfarm services. For my freelance work I've used respower.com for 6 or 7 animations, their one day pass for $300 is great. You can average about 20-30 nodes most of the time, and I would recommend rendering with them if you can on tue-thur, fri-mon gets busier.

 

IMO you have enough horsepower for setting up your animations, but no where near enough to render your own animations with vray. I would probably want at least 8 dual quads before I would even consider running my own. That setup could probably get through 600-700 frames a night depending on your scene (I avg 15-20 min frames), but for a 3000 frame animation that's still risky if you have a client who loves last minute changes.

 

 

Hi Brian

 

I have never used a render farm before so i have a few questions in my mind

1.) how does it work? i mean i archive my file with all the final settings and send them that archived max file withall the textures? and they will render the frames and upload those frames on some ftp?

2.) i tried to use their guestimator and i found this thing to be bloody expensive

 

Cost Guestimator [Terms of Use] Scene File Type: --- Select Scene Type --- 3dsmax Blender LightWave Maya Vue

Next

 

Tell us a little bit about your computer. CPU Type: --- Select CPU Type ---AMD AthlonAMD Athlon X2 [Dual Core]Intel Pentium 3Intel Pentium 4Intel Pentium 4 + HyperthreadingIntel Pentium 4 XeonIntel Pentium 4 Xeon + Hyperthreading

GHz:

Number of CPUs: 1 ("Single CPU") 2 ("Dual CPU") 4 ("Quad CPU")

Back Next

 

Tell us a bit more about your scene.

Render Engine --- Please Select ---3dsmax Scanline [built In]3dsmax + brazil r/s3dsmax + finalRender3dsmax + mental ray3dsmax + V-Ray

Frames

Split Frame

Rows Columns

Radiosity?

 

Per-Frame render time: : :

Hr Min Sec

 

Back Next

 

Without ResPower

Total Render Time 18.75 Day

Total GHz*Hr

 

With ResPower

Passes Through The Farm 54

Est. Completion Time 18 Hr - 1.13 Day

Est. GHz*Hrs 5400 - 8100

Est. Credits 4050 - 6075

Est. Metered Cost US$2430 - $3037.5

Subscribers Pay:

 

that is too much money in INR

i get the same for the project

 

 

 

what is the workflow behind all this?

i am from india and will i able to do it easily from here.

How much do they charge for rendering frames

 

Sorry i am a noob with using render farms but wud like to know more about it if its really helpful and i can afford it

 

Thanks

[kippu]

they have a one day unlimited passes for $300 ..wherein you can submit jobs within 24 hours and then collect the images whenever it gets done....pretty sweet deal

[BrianKitts]

First option (in red)

https://www.respower.com/auto_farm.php?page=subscribe.php

 

but yes you are pretty much correct about the process. It's all automated. Your account is also an FTP login for posting and retrieving projects. Once it's done y there's a nice function that will allow you to send a ZIP/RAR command to your folder on the their end and package all your rendered images, then you just DL the archive, as opposed to having the pull all the files individually, and with the benefit of any available compression.