Townhouse project...help!

[Aspiring Visualizer!]

I am about to start a fairly large rendering & then animation of a townhouse complex (with 2 rows of townhouses) someone else is doing the modelling, i have to add materials etc..

 

This is actually my very 1st rendering project, I have been taking classes on Viz, but havent had the chance yet to practise my skills (just class assignments) I'm pretty confident though.

 

This has to be highly realistic (incl. furniture etc.) and the client would like the animation of the exterior to follow around the building from front to back. As well an interior animation of both the main & second floors.

 

I'm thinking I'm going to have to seperate the files of the floors etc. to save memory and time, but am I getting in over my head in animating this? It will take forever to render right? especially if this has to be highly realistic, as well, there will have to be alot of frames needed to view the house slowly?

 

Would a better way be to render images of each room and then compose all of the images into a video by using ie. intervideo WinDVD Creater? This way the images can be much larger in size than the animated images and it wouldn't take nearly as much time? I guess more of a slideshow though?

 

Also, if I was to add some sort of mellow music (ie.piano)to this could I get in trouble?

 

I guess I'm just really searching for advise from anyone that has worked on a project like this?

 

Also, I only have 1 computer that I use to model and render, so i cant really have 24 hours of render time, as I need it to work on. I could render at night and I guess need be use my boyfriends computer for rendering during the day

 

Any advise is greatly appreciated!! I think I'm in over my head?!

 

(Ps anyone know of any sites with realistic FREE couches? or misc. items such as candels/potted flowers-'interior clutter')

Thanks!

[IC]

Hmm tricky first job but you'll get help here. From what you've said this is a big undertaking-the render time on one pc could be weeks or even months.

 

You really can't cut corners on animation. If you want high quality, you need loads of detail and props and a huge amount of frames.

There's various places you'll get free furniture models (3d Cafe etc) but free generally means low quality-with a few exceptions.

 

There's a lot you can learn here just using the search function-try that first on each of the points you've raised above.

 

Good Luck

[mbr]

That is a hell of a first time project!!

 

I'd forget any GI for this and find some good fake GI solutions (you can search on here, there are some good scripts for light domes).

 

 

I would go for the slide show. Animations are tough because you can't patch them up afterwards, like you can a still. With only one computer you are looking at watching the rendering for much of the entire project, as noted, weeks or months!!

 

Lastly, if it were me, I wouldn't want to use someone else's model. I only use someone else's model when I can instruct them how to model it, exactly, otherwise you waste time trying to figure it out. Might not be the case, but something to think about before he models everything.

 

Good luck!!

[Devin Johnston]

You really need a plan of attack for this type of project. Give your self deadlines that you have to stick to or you run the risk of not finishing the whole project because you spent to much time getting the brick material looking perfect. You will need just as much if not more time working on the lighting than you will putting on textures. When your talking about "realistic" renderings you have to make sure you textures and lighting are top notch, and I hate to say it but unless you've done this in the past your going to find it very hard to achieve. Who ever is modeling the project for you needs to stick to your schedule because in the end your either going to get the credit or the blame if the project isn't finished on time. Make sure that you have all the information you need before you get started or you may find you self waiting on a designer to pick finishes or furniture or fixtures. I would plan out my animation path way in advance; this will let you know what you need to model and what you don't. It will also help in establishing how long your animation is going to take, and how many frames need to be rendered. I think you’re going to find that one computer is not enough, your really going to struggle to get the realism you want, and the length of animation you need. I would suggest looking into using a render farm to render out the final animation, that way you don't have to worry about how long each frame takes to render; here is one that I've used in the past.

http://www.respower.com/?PHPSESSID=45ac5827f2fc5d4e1416695d163c7c40

Hope some of this helps!

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

Cheryl

 

for a 1st job you sure got confidence

 

render to a series of stills, not to an avi

This way you can add and subtract and link "sequences" together

 

and make small adjustments (later) if necessary

 

you will get a lot of good advice here at cgarchitect

keep us posted on how This is going, very interesting

 

**

 

some Free interior models

 

http://www.mr-cad.com/default.php?cPath=38

 

**

 

Thanks

 

Randy

[manta]

Hi Cheryl,

This reminds me of my first arch/viz job, let me tell you the problems I had, and maybe you can use this info to prepare yourself, and hopefully avoid them !!!

I was contracted to do an animation of a building project, it was only one building, and someone else was going to model it, my job was to do the texturing, lighting, animating things like birds, cars, fountains, people, trees, you name it !!!

I was also supposed to do the interiors, well it was a much bigger undertaking than I had imagined, I had been animating for years, and had done just about everything on the list in those years, but had never done them all together in one scene.

 

My first problem was the guy modeling the building, not a problem with him, but the way he was modeling the building, he was using ADT, and it was his first project too, so he wasn't aware when he was modeling it, that he was supposed to be thinking about UV's, and so make sure that the person doing this is aware of this, and separates everything into layers by material, it was a nightmare !!!

 

My second problem was the firm that hired me was incredibly slow at giving me information i.e. the interior designs, which I was eventually told to do myself, so not only did I have to create the interiors, I had to design them also (I'm not an interior designer) So make sure they get those to you ASAP

 

My third problem was the worst, it wouldn't render, it took too much memory.

so crash after crash, I scaled it back further and further as much as I could,

and still crashes persisted, I spent more time as a tech, than I was spending working on what I should have, in the end, between that and a financial disagrement, the project was ended, what I now know (but didn't know then) could have been the solution, is rendering in passes, or layers, I forget which one, I don't know if it would have worked, but if you run into a similar problem try that, you will need a compositing program like combustion to put it all together, but then you should have one anyway,to put the final animation together ...

 

Questions for you :

 

what is the budget ?

can you buy textures and models and use a render farm ?

what is the end result going to be i.e. DVD ?

 

If you want to see some really good examples go to

 

http://www.renderings.com

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

cheryl...

 

another option for animating would be to use a 'Ken Burns' style on it. Ken Burns is a filmmaker who produces documentaries. he didn't invent the style, but he does it extremely well, and he is now given credit for it. basically, produce a series of high quality stills that can be used to tell the story of how you would go through the building if you were doing a standard fly through. then do pans and zooms across the images using an video editing program. if down well, it could be really interesting. i have been wanting to try one like that for awhile now, but have not had a chance.

 

other things to think about, besides those above...

 

if i say an animation will take me this many hours to complete, then i add about 20% to that time to allow for admin, troubleshooting, and other issues that are bound to come up while working on an animation.

 

don't only set deadlines for yourself, but set deadlines for the client also. he must have all of the information to you by this date, information added later will cause time delays, and possibly require additional billing. give him a form to sign off on, so you have a record that he authorized you to proceed with the information you were given. before you start rendering animation, have him sign off on a series of stills, and a wire frame of the path. basically cover your back so you don't get screwed by changes. depending on the circumstance, if you are going to do an additional service for a change, all of the sudden the change does not become that important.

 

...and like what was mentioned above. develop a strategy and stick to it. no radiosity solution or GI if you are a beginner, stick to scan line, it will save you time in the end. and whatever you do, don't fool yourself into thinking that you are going to render an entire animation on your computer. sorry, but if this is a high quality animation, it just isn't going to happen.

[manta]

Well I take that back, about renderings.com. I hadn't been there in a while, and some how the quality in their animations has gone down, I don't know if they are cutting corners, or if they have new artists doing them, really obvious trees on planes, shadows flickering etc... they still have some decent stuff, but it used to be incredible, check it out just the same, something that IS obvious about them, is that they do a storyboard of the project before hand, some thing you might also consider doing... it really helps the animation FLOW !!!

 

As far as music, I would try and fit that into the budget also, don't use copyrighted music, could be trouble...