Somewhat urgent animation question

[epelj1]

I have this tendency to bite off more than I can chew...

 

I'm doing an animation as part of my final project for the semester in architecture school. Two actually.

 

The first, will be a static vray camera, fading from daylight to night time, and then turning on various lights around the site, as well as on the building (exterior rendering). I thought that the vray sun/sky system would be the easiest way to go about that (comments?) but I was worried about the camera settings going from daylight to no light?

 

The second animation has a bit more to it. The only real question i have right now is fairly complicated, to me atleast. It will feature animated people (which I've surprisingly figured out), but I want those people to be somewhat see through (icy for lack of a better word) and a lit object in them, to light them up. Imagine a person made out of ice, with their heart glowing red. I would assume that a simple colored sphere light would do this, what i don't know is how to keep that light in place as the people move? Would you make the person a parent object for the light? In which case, how do I do that?

 

I need to start this in a couple of days, the sooner the better, you know how school is. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks!

Jason

[alias_marks]

The first, will be a static vray camera, fading from daylight to night time, and then turning on various lights around the site, as well as on the building (exterior rendering). I thought that the vray sun/sky system would be the easiest way to go about that (comments?) but I was worried about the camera settings going from daylight to no light?

 

This is just my opinion, but I might try turning off the exposure of the camera all together and just setting the vray sun intensity somewhere in the range of .05 or .1. That way you don't have to fuss with fstops, exposure, etc. but that's just my take cause I really don't come from a photography background and find that workflow provides me more the flexibility I need with the least settings to fuss with (esp. if you're trying to save time and animating a whole day of sunlight).

 

 

The second animation has a bit more to it. The only real question i have right now is fairly complicated, to me atleast. It will feature animated people (which I've surprisingly figured out), but I want those people to be somewhat see through (icy for lack of a better word) and a lit object in them, to light them up. Imagine a person made out of ice, with their heart glowing red. I would assume that a simple colored sphere light would do this, what i don't know is how to keep that light in place as the people move? Would you make the person a parent object for the light? In which case, how do I do that?

 

I need to start this in a couple of days, the sooner the better, you know how school is. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

This sounds like a pretty complex setup for some people, (but can't wait to see how it turns out If speed is your goal here I might shy away from trying to render it out all at once and render your people and 'heart glow objet' in different passes... then tweak their opacity, glow blending modes, add glow modifiers, etc. in post to get the right effect you're going for....

Edited December 4, 2009 by alias_marks
quote brackets

[epelj1]

This is just my opinion, but I might try turning off the exposure of the camera all together and just setting the vray sun intensity somewhere in the range of .05 or .1. That way you don't have to fuss with fstops, exposure, etc. but that's just my take cause I really don't come from a photography background and find that workflow provides me more the flexibility I need with the least settings to fuss with (esp. if you're trying to save time and animating a whole day of sunlight).

 

Thanks! I didn't realize you could just turn off the exposure for the cameras. I'll try that. I plan on quickly animating the day / dusk times, and having the main animation happening at night. So while I am animating most of a day, it'll happen very quickly.

 

This sounds like a pretty complex setup for some people, (but can't wait to see how it turns out If speed is your goal here I might shy away from trying to render it out all at once and render your people and 'heart glow objet' in different passes... then tweak their opacity, glow blending modes, add glow modifiers, etc. in post to get the right effect you're going for....

 

Yeah.. my knowledge of post, and rendering passes for that matter, is slim to none. So i think for the sake of time, i'd be better off rendering it all than ending up with multiple pieces and no idea what to do with them.

 

I have high hopes for the people, but it seems like the grand vision that's in my head rarely ever sees paper.

[CJI]

Best way to learn new techniques, i find that the best way i learn to go for broke trying new things. I'm sure most would agree that sometimes it's the only way sometimes.

 

The sun/sky system is definitly the quickest way to achieve this. Alias is right that moving the intensities down could simplify things a bit for you. I personally prefer the extra finite control that you get using the camera settings to control the exposures to quickly control overall scene light. Use whichever method is easier for you. If you were to go the camera method then create keyframes (on the camera settings) at the extremes, so for example say; day, dusk and then night testing the settings of the camera on stills or even a VERY rough animation with LOW settings. Add tweaking keyframes in between if necessary to tidy things up bit. I usually create them halfway between the extremes then check again to see if those tweaks were enough. I hope thats fairly clear, again whichever method is easier for you to get the job done.

 

Regarding the people, I again agree with Alias that doing this in post is considerably quicker and easier than doing this all in one. That depends though on what you are trying to achieve and as you said your knowledge of post production. If i was to do this i would render the people out on a seperate layer and then add the "heart glow" in after effects to the people. Thus getting the transparent/trancluscent effect and the glow in a oner without really effecting render time. If you want the glow to effect the scene (shadows etc) then a visible omni would do it. Place your light, then select your person and light and group them. center your pivot where you want, i would put it at the base of the people so you always know where exactly their feet are falling. then your free to animate away. The light and the people will follow where you animate the group.

 

Thats my take on it, i hope i was able to help in some way. As always i may have missed something.

 

Out of curiosity how are you doing the people, RPC content? Geometry? this will effect how you deal with the opacity of the people?

 

P.S. I would Learn to embrace layers, its one of the most important and time saving techniques you can learn. From personal experience it has made the difference between getting the job done and not at all. Can seriously lower render times when managed carefully as well. I understand your reticence though, i was exactly the same if not worse before i was forced to use them haha.

Edited December 5, 2009 by CJI
To add more information

[Noise]

Regarding the people, I completely agree with Curtis that you should render the scene and people seperately and composite in After effects or similar software.

 

I had a nightmare recently with rendering moving people in Vray - if you render it all together it will take alot longer to render anyway and especially if you are trying to get specific effects the trial and error will be a headache and incredibly time consuming.

 

The time that you would invest in tweaking and test rendering would be infinitely better invested in getting stuck into AE or Combustion - we use AE. It will be a god send I guarantee.

 

For tutorials on AE, go to Video Copilot.

[alias_marks]

 

For tutorials on AE, go to Video Copilot.

 

This is exactly the resource I was about to suggest... this guy is great, has entertaining jokes:), and will have you up and running around after effects in a matter of hours... (probably much less than figuring out how to get what you want in 3d) particularly if you're already somewhat familiar with photoshop.

[epelj1]

Thanks for the help guys!

 

For the people, I figured out how to do everything I wanted to do. I had 3D people that I figured out how to animate, found all the bip files that I needed, figured out to get the effect that I wanted, all I had to do was link the light to the neck of the bip (not exactly the placement i was going for, but it was good enough). Figured all that out, and decided to change the animation a bit, which made all of that useless. However, it was a great learning process, and something I intend to use later on.

 

I tried the grouping of the people / light, but the light wouldn't follow the person. I also tried making the light a child of the person, which made the light move, just in completely wrong directions.

 

For future info, do you guys have any suggestions on where to see layers being used? For this instance, would you put all the people on a layer, and only render that layer, then put the two animations together in AE?

 

Thanks again! Tremendous help.

[alias_marks]

well, the anticipation is killing me! do share the result if you get a chance on vimeo on youtube or whatver, would be great to see what you came up with..

[alias_marks]

I also tried making the light a child of the person, which made the light move, just in completely wrong directions.

 

Just as long as you make sure the parent holds the childs hand before they cross the street I think this is a good method..

 

As for layers, there's a ton of great ae breakdowns over at cgtalk that seem to pop up maybe once ever couple days... I'll do some searching and post a good one soon.

 

M-

[epelj1]

lol You're going to have to wait a bit. I'm still setting everything up to even start the rendering process. Check back in a week!

 

I'm still going to use the people, but in a still, so I'll be able to post that in a couple of days. It's low on the priority list.

 

Again, thanks!

[CJI]

The children walk home on their own they do tend to wander about a bit lol...

 

Thats really strange though that neither method didn't work. I think it has to do with the co'ordinates of the the objects when you grouped them. Probably needed to zero them. Still technically that shouldn't matter, either way Im glad you found a solution that works for you.

 

Loads of sources for methods of comping in AE like Michael said. Video CoPilot and and CGtalk are great places to start. Put simply yes you could put all people on a layer and render seperatly then pull the beauty layer and people both in to AE for compositing. I would strongly suggest trying out the sites that Michael and Niall suggested as once you learn to harness post work properly in animation (and stills mind you) you will wonder how you went without it.

 

Really looking forward to seeing your stuff though. Keep us posted...

[epelj1]

Had a slight issue at 3am this morning..

 

I merged in some 3D people, applied the bip to them, and then they wouldn't move. I messed with it a little bit, said screw it and went to bed. Is there something I'm missing?

 

Don't get too anxious to see my stuff.