Exterior 360 Animation Tips

[Matt Sugden]

Hi I have a client who I do regular exterior images for, usually both front and back of the properties in the end. I have a new project which looks like it is going to be the same brief, only this time I was wondering about trying to seduce them into getting a 360 fly round animation done of the outside.

 

Generally I do a lot of photoshop work on my exteriors adding plants and foliage, and my concern is being able to add a similar level of detail to the animation, as I'll inevitably end up having to replicate the same kind of dense foliage and planting in 3D. Firstly I dont have that many 3D plant models, and I'm struggling to find anything decent (low poly) to buy, and secondly, dependant on the models i can actually get hold of, I'm worried about memory issues, if I have stacks of plants and therefore polys. Could anyone whose successfully done this reccomend solutions to my first two points please?

 

A final consideration for me, is that usually the still images are situated in a camera perspective which shows little or no surrounding context (next door neighbours etc). I'm also struggling to think how I can present the single dwelling in such a way, so it doesn't look odd on it's own, i.e on a white background or something, as I can't be modeling the whole street for example.

 

Any suggestions would be great.

[batfink82]

Hi Matt,

 

3D planting can be used easily if you convert the geometry to proxies, these work with either VRAY or Mental Ray and will allow you to use a lot of detailed 3D plant models in your scene whilst still allowing you to actually render the frames. I have used this method recently on a very large animation, this had fully detailed building models as well as extensive planting, furniture etc.

 

Evermotion is a good resource, VB trees are also useful. If you want bespoke tress and more control over the poly count then you can 'grow' your own with Onyx Tree or similar.

 

If you need some context then you could just build a simplified massing model of a street around your building, this context could be rendered as a white 'chalk' material.

[Dave Buckley]

i'm doing exactly this todayand tomorrow, i've got to do an animation of a data centre, the client wants to start outside the building, then go inside etc with cutaways to animations of pieces of machinery.

 

the building in question is the only one being rendered up with realistic materials, all surrounding objects (buildings/trees etc, are all being done with the white concept look) it also helps focus on the building in question.

 

and yes i'm using proxies for my 3d planting and also using the xfrog trees avaialble on autodesk seek website for free

[Matt Sugden]

Thanks for the tips. I have started dabbling with rendering trees and I'm having exactly the same issues I ran into last time I tried to approach this, I'm running out of memory.

 

I'm using vray proxies and only have two trees on screen so far, each tree is coming in at 430,000 polys. I'm guessing this is way too much? even with the proxy setup.

 

I keep looking at the Marlin trees as they seem to be much lower poly count. Has anyone used them and can testify for their quality?

[Dave Buckley]

which trees are you currently using Matt?

 

and what machine is this on?

[Matt Sugden]

To be honest I'm not sure which tree the library is from, just one I've accumilated along the way, but seems to suit the model I'm working on.

 

My machine is pretty good, quad core with 3g of RAM, but it's complaining when it reaches 1.8gb, not sure why.

[Dave Buckley]

http://seek.autodesk.com/search.htm#query=search^new^query%3Dxfrog%3Bcategory%3D%3BsortKey%3D%3BsortDir%3Dasc%3BstartAt%3D0%3BmaxResults%3D20%3BviewMode%3D0%3Bsource%3DSearchBox

 

give those a go?? 100 free trees, i've managed to render a scene (using MR proxies) with at least 20 of these in the scene on my laptop, which is 32 bit 3Gb of RAM, rubbish processors.

 

also if the trees are using opacity maps it slows down big time with Gi calcs. check jeff pattons foliage rendering post on his blog on mrmaterials. i know you are suing vray but should be transferrable

[Matt Sugden]

Thanks Dave, I'll have a look at those next. Just tried the VB sample which seems good for number of polys, i think my issue might be the op map.

 

Just tried running it through the vray refraction slot instead, so going to see how that pans out!

[Dave Buckley]

and here is the tip on jeff's blog http://www.mrmaterials.com/jeffs-blog/103-faster-foliage-renders.html

 

not too sure how it will work with proxies however, shouldn't be a problem as the material is separate from the proxy and not baked into it, so can easily switch off opacity for GI calcs and then switch back on for render

[Matt Sugden]

Well using Jeff's technique of doing the GI calc with the op map switched off, then saving the solution and rendering with the OP maps switched back on again has helped, in that it has actually finished rendering this time without crashing, so that's very positive.

 

Might try out the xfrogs now! Thanks dave

[Dave Buckley]

no worries at all.

 

glad to be of assistance.

 

not too sure how it will work with animations though (turning on and off opacity)

 

but those xfrog trees should be ok, don't think they are anywhere near half a million poly's

 

i see you've moved from cheadle. why would you want to leave our beautfiul city of stockport?

[Matt Sugden]

I'm actually getting close to giving up on animating the exterior becuase of these trees. I just can't seem to get acceptable rendering times. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, or whether sticking heavy foliage in animations is within the domain of Gi and small studios.

 

It's late, so maybe that's why I'm being defeatist!

 

====> yes left rainy Cheadle in favour of sunny sea side Lytham