executive wing animation

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

attached is the latest animation project i am working on. it is a slow traditional arch animation walk-through leaning toward the photoreal side of rendering technique.

 

ideally it would have been completed on the first go around, but we made the rather idiotic mistake of commissioning an animation before the design was even started. don't ask me why. so basically i will be re-rendering the entire animation (for the third time). we are re-working the design, currently it is more contemporary than the client wants.

 

the camera path will be changing a lot, the first pass into the space needs to slow down. i am ditching the 'waggle' at the end of the second pass, and i will be entering the patient room through the family entrance, and not the patient room entrance.

 

comments made by the client were... the first pass entering into the wing is to fast, overall it felt dark, they didn't like the artwork (want something more colorful), and of course, were not happy with the design. the design i can help to a certain extent, but the lead designer on the project is not thrilled about doing a traditional piece, so it will definitely suffer. the others are easy changes, and some are correct assumptions by the client.

 

all of the modeling was done in formz, animation in max, and rendered with vray. all textures are custom, except the paintings, which i am blatantly breaking the copyright law on. all lights are IES files, except the cove light which is an architectural material, and the sunlight is a direct target light. all materials (beside the cove light) are max standard materials. i don't feel comfortable with Vray materials yet.

 

i blurred the name of the hospital at the beginning and end, and placed a black box over the name above the door. the project is not public yet.

 

please criticize or critique whatever part bothers you, or you think could be better.

 

http://www.phase22.com/work/karl/karlsberger.wmv [19.1 megs, windows media format]

 

 

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[trhoads]

Very nice work. Best looking hospital room/suite I have ever seen. The only thing that bothers me is the camera path between the 24th second and the 35th second. The target of the camera seems to weave down the hall, while the camera body seems to move in a slightly different direction. Outside of that, excellent work.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Very nice work. Best looking hospital room/suite I have ever seen. The only thing that bothers me is the camera path between the 24th second and the 35th second. The target of the camera seems to weave down the hall, while the camera body seems to move in a slightly different direction. Outside of that, excellent work.

ya, that was the 'waggle'. i agree it needs to come out. origianlly it stopped on the door, then went to the next shot. my project architect thought we should see the screen before we faded to the screen. personally i didn't think it was a necessity to see it before we faded to it. i am going to straighten the camera view out so i am travelling directly backward, and fade when it come into view. i think that will make the flow better.

[Elliot]

Travis,

 

I have been working on hospitals since 1979....... This is a very good looking hospital you have here. Is this design following the suggestions of the Havard group for the hospital of the 2010 where the family will have an active role on the care of the patient.

 

My only comments are about the medical stuff..... Where are you placing the medical gas, electrical, communication services for the patient. Have the cross infection comitte approved the use of wooden and carpeted floors...?

 

Great looking job...... I like your colors..... Wao.... At last something different...... Nice work...... Good taste.....

 

See you.....

Elliot

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Is this design following the suggestions of the Havard group for the hospital of the 2010 where the family will have an active role on the care of the patient.

 

My only comments are about the medical stuff..... Where are you placing the medical gas, electrical, communication services for the patient. Have the cross infection comitte approved the use of wooden and carpeted floors...?

not exactly. the design is for an executive wing of a hospital ...which is a nice way of saying v.i.p. suites. think of it more like a suite in a nice hotel than a patient room in a hospital.

 

the gases, electrical and such will be hidden in sliding panels on the headwall. most of the mobil equipment will be stored behind the wood screen in the corridor. the floor is a vinyl laminate. i don't necessarily agree with wood vinyl laminate floor, it sounds like an oxymoron to me, but the client seems to like it. i am sure we ar in vilation to some degree by hiding everything, but we will figure out the technicalities as the project rolls along.

[IC]

Excellent animation (as usual.)

 

What's your new avatar from?

[Ernest Burden III]

i blurred the name of the hospital at the beginning and end, and placed a black box over the name above the door. the project is not public yet.

 

 

Your file is in a folder called karl and the file is called karlsberger...don't worry, we'll never figure that one out.

 

Downloading now...I look forward to watching it.

[Chad Warner]

I think Karlsberger is the Architectural Firm CHG works for....

 

By the way, great animation!

 

-Chad

[Ernest Burden III]

I watched it. Three times.

 

I really like it. I do want to get on a plane, fly over there and slap you silly until you get the idea of seperate shots. You don't see Speilberg doing singular, twisty camera moves, so why should we?

 

The hospital name, seen on a wood wall (blacked out) should be shown in a more respectful way--a more elevational shot. I like the use of a sign in the space rather than a graphic (I plan to do exactly what I am telling you for my science school animation, the WIP of last week) but still treat it like a graphic in how it is shot.

 

I love the lights---they look very real and the IES files provide a wonderful character to them.

 

I suggest that the desk area be more brightly lit. It would help it stand out from the halls, and a lighter area would help the hall shots not be so monotonous.

 

More, simpler shots--less spinning. At one point its like a pano-map.

 

The newspaper is a nice touch.

 

I like the artwork, and also the way the glass on them works.

 

The wood floor, seen in the end, is too much like the walls in color and shade--they merge. Try making it darker and that will help it be a little more reflective.

 

The shot in the patient room does that spinning thing, then continuously tracks into the suite room, its dizzying. May I suggest a shot that looks across the room and moves over the bed along the wall, still looking across the wall without much turning. In other words, the camera looks about 90 deg. to the track axis. The a shot looking back which includes the door to the suite, then another to go into the suite.

 

 

Overall, a really nice, soft, piece. You're doing great!

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I watched it. Three times.

 

I really like it. I do want to get on a plane, fly over there and slap you silly until you get the idea of seperate shots. You don't see Speilberg doing singular, twisty camera moves, so why should we?

 

I suggest that the desk area be more brightly lit. It would help it stand out from the halls, and a lighter area would help the hall shots not be so monotonous.

 

The shot in the patient room does that spinning thing, then continuously tracks into the suite room, its dizzying. May I suggest a shot that looks across the room and moves over the bed along the wall, still looking across the wall without much turning. In other words, the camera looks about 90 deg. to the track axis. The a shot looking back which includes the door to the suite, then another to go into the suite.

i am far from happy with the camera path. i tried to speed things up and slow things down along the path to help break it up, but that does not seem to be working. for the most part i seem to get the best response on camera paths that start at one point, and move to another point, without trying to do any truning or spinning. i think i need to work on cutting to shots, rather than always fading.

 

i will adjust the floor, and nurse stationlights. not sure what i am going to do with the nams yet. the first screen is just the hospitals name with their formal logo (veryimportant to the hospital), and the second is the donor naming rights to the wing.

 

 

What's your new avatar from?

it is from an album by 'stiff little fingers'...

 

it is some of my favorite cover art. i like that you don't have to think about it, you immediately sense the desperate last grasp. just trying to hang on. here is a larger version.....

 

 

 

I think Karlsberger is the Architectural Firm CHG works for....

yep. we specialize in hospitals, with an emphasize on children's hospitals.

[IC]

Puts me in mind of the anime style in Kill Bill and the current Linkin Park video.

 

Sorry to be talking about something other than your work-just really liked that image.

[STRAT]

very nice and peacefull. and costly from the patient's side of it by the looks of things

 

i dissagree with EBIII about overdoing the single shot camera scenes. i think you have a great balance of lingering slow movement, together with the usual cross-fades.

Even though Mr.Speilberg doesn't do it this way, archi-visualisers traditionally have, and altho styles and trends change i think the long lingering twisty animated shot still works well, if used correctly.

 

Didn't see anything special about the IES info, and i though the whole lot could have been a tad more brightly lit, but very nice in all.

 

i hope ur not over-stepping the line here - even though you've blanked out the title and the client's name, ur still giving a public viewing of his confinential scheme. this is why i never post, just incase the client or his associates are watching.

[Ernest Burden III]

i dissagree with EBIII about overdoing the single shot camera scenes....Even though Mr.Speilberg doesn't do it this way, archi-visualisers traditionally have

 

I disagree with your diagreement with my agreement with my own darned self. I would say that you are right that arch-vis has traditionally used the one-shot helmet-cam method, but I think it was because we didn't know better. And we, as mostly using desktop software on low-powered PCs, did not have access to editing technology--remember, back just 10 years ago you really needed a full editing studio to do what we can do in Premiere and the like in a few minutes. Output was to beta tape. Complex camera moves and edits were not viable options for us.

 

Then there was the 'gee-wiz' factor, architects seemed endlessly enamoured with anything done on a computer, no matter how good or bad it was.

 

So I am not saying there is anything wrong with long shots, just that they do not always serve the storytelling. To travel into one room, spin around, move to a door, go through into another space, spin there, go out another door... makes a huge point of the movement at the expense of the spaces. Would you write a description of visiting a place that way?

 

So I look to people who are actually skilled at visual storytelling for clues about how to improve arch-vis stories. And what I see is not singular, long shots punctuated with spins. But features usually are about more than a room. In a film the room is a set, while for us the room is the actor and the story. How to present it?

[Brian Cassil]

Nice!

 

I work for a firm that does health care primarily so I've done more than my fair share of hospital animations allthough, strangely, I've never done an animation of the interior of one.

 

Comparing architectural viz animations to cinema does have some validity but only to a certain point. The key difference is cinema is intended for the widest public possible. There has to be something different going on every couple seconds to keep the audiences interest. Also, through most of a movie we aren't supposed to be paying really close attention to the environment. We are supposed to be looking at the characters and seeing them play off each other, so you are constantly going back and forth. In the moments where the audience is supposed to be looking at the environment you will notice much longer shots. Some that I can think of are the intros to "The Two Towers", "The Sound of Music", when Dorothy first gets to Oz, and lots of other musicals.

 

Architectural animations are intended to be viewed primarily by those who already have a heavy interest in what is going on. A hospital administrator, design architect, and hospital staff are going to love the longer paths through the corridors leading into the rooms because they want to see what it is going to be like to experience that. They don't need lots of cuts to keep things interesting. If however this is to be viewed by a more general audience at a public opening or something like that then it would probably be worth re-editing.

 

Anyway, I really like what you've done except for it being a little dark. Good Job!

[mwhite]

Very nice animation, I would not mind staying there If I weren't sick. The wood textures are the best I've seen.

 

One observation, at 1:11 is there a light leak between the blue and grey wall coverings on the bump out in the room.

 

Thanks for sharing the animation with everyone.

 

Mike White

[STRAT]

@EBIII -

 

wouldn't you agree that it looks like we'll have to agree on me having a disagreement on your disagreement on my disagreement on your disagreement with ur own darned self. i think

[Ernest Burden III]

wouldn't you agree that it looks like we'll have to agree on me having a disagreement on your disagreement on my disagreement on your disagreement with ur own darned self. i think

 

I'm sorry, I canot agree with that, at all.

 

Interesting points being made. I am not pushing that there is a single answer, a best and only way. As can be seen by my own posted WIP, I am struggling with the issue, too.

 

However, I think it is useful to think of creating work with an overall entertainment value, as long as you are not confusing the basic function of the animation in the process. The elements of the space are the actors, not the background. They are all we have to work with.

 

I'm certainly learning from everyone's comments.

[IC]

I agree(I think).

[salf]

Thats a great animation, congratulations.

 

May I ask, what system (s) did you use for that walkthrough and how much time it tooked?

[Vince Paske]

Hi CHG,

 

I just started using VRay and really like your animation. I was wondering what your settings are (IR mapping - how many pre-passes did you use?) and what your render times were per frame.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Hi CHG,

 

I just started using VRay and really like your animation. I was wondering what your settings are (IR mapping - how many pre-passes did you use?) and what your render times were per frame.

i almost always use the settings in the attached image, the only thing that varries for me is the 'first diffuse bounce'. it moves between 1.2 and 2 depending on what i need for the scene.

 

http://www.phase22.com/temp/irradiance_settings.gif

[Ernest Burden III]

the only thing that varries for me is the 'first diffuse bounce'. it moves between 1.2 and 2 depending on what i need for the scene

 

That is a 'strength' multiplier? If so that is one area that Lightscape falls short. If you set the energy bouncing above 1 for a material, the file will, at some point, be ruined by massively over-bright areas. You never know when it will start, but once it does there is no going back, except to start over. Stop the process just before then, and you can get some great images.

 

Cinema allows you to crank up GI to any amount you like without destroying your image. It looks like that is what you are doing, too.

 

I notice you have turned on a 'refractive caustic' and off a 'reflective caustic'--can you explain that a little?

 

Also--you didn't answer the meat-and-potatoes question--average frame rendering time.

[Ernest Burden III]

Also--you didn't answer the meat-and-potatoes question--average frame rendering time

 

As he shamelessly quotes himself...

 

That, and a new issue. What are you using for camera view angles? And why?

 

You didn't know there would be a test later?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

That is a 'strength' multiplier? If so that is one area that Lightscape falls short. If you set the energy bouncing above 1 for a material, the file will, at some point, be ruined by massively over-bright areas. You never know when it will start, but once it does there is no going back, except to start over. Stop the process just before then, and you can get some great images.

 

Cinema allows you to crank up GI to any amount you like without destroying your image. It looks like that is what you are doing, too.

 

I notice you have turned on a 'refractive caustic' and off a 'reflective caustic'--can you explain that a little?

 

Also--you didn't answer the meat-and-potatoes question--average frame rendering time.

didn't mean to take so lone getting back. i was re-running the animation this weekend, and i wanted to watch my rendering times on it to see if i could get a better idea.

 

 

 

the irradiance maps took about 35 hours to calculate on a dual xeon with 1 gig of ram. after that, the frames to an average of 7 minutes each. the were processed on my pseudo rendering farm using pentium 4, 2.4 ghz and a 1 gig of ram. the rendering farm consits of the drafting machines at night.

 

i don't really have an answer for refractive and reflective caustics. i was throwing switches on and off trying to get the darn calculation to process faster. i don' think either effected it in my case. i think they only come into play when you are using photon maps.

 

my knowledge of vray settings are limited, so i don't have a clear answer for strength multiplier either. i think you can set the initial bounce as high as you want. for this animation i had it set on 2. the second bounce you can set up to 1. in older verions i think it would go higher, aty least accroding to some tutorials i read, but now it only goes to one. i have no rhyme or reason for where i set them other than what feeks good. hotspots will start to blow out if you get to high, but it is reletively predictable. so i guess it works similar to cinema in this case.

 

As he shamelessly quotes himself...

 

That, and a new issue. What are you using for camera view angles? And why?

 

You didn't know there would be a test later?

i used a 22mm lens, which gives a 78.6 degree view angle. it gives a slight distrotion, but not to bad. i typically use camera angles in this range. i can fit everything i want in the shot without having tunnel vision, and depending on the scene, it can make it look more exciting with a wider view angle. you have to be careful in small roms though. with a large view angle, they sometimes feel a lot larger than they actually are.

 

i didn't mean to be blunt with my answers, but i am really dragging this afternoon. let me know what my final grade is on the quiz.

[Vince Paske]

Thanks Crazy Homeless and tired from working the weekend Guy,

 

I saw your post over on Chaos so I got some answers over there too.

 

http://www.chaoticdimension.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6895&highlight=animation

 

Just so I understand this (I'm trying to figure this out for future animations using VRay) - you pre-calc'd 8 Irradiance maps, each of which took about ten hours to finish - you had to run them on idividual machines because there's no DR for Irradiance maps (yet). Then you ran your animation using the "from file" mode to load and use those pre-cal'd ir maps.

Have you tried using the "multiframe incremental" mode where each server would render and refine it's own irradiance map?

 

Here's another link to help others unravel irradianc mapping:

 

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/VRayHelp150beta/tutorials_imap1.htm