United3dArtists Archive

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 08 Dec 2011, 15:46

Hello all, this is the continuation of my miniseries for South American kids Television.

I am now starting to work on the world where blue guy lives (a latin backyard). So I started a new set. Using some of trueSpaces trees and Parva's pack of scenes with trees.. I quickly slapped up this backyard.

I was a bit overwhelemed but the complexity of the world, cause in some areas I need the worlds detailed enough for the view of a bug. So everything inside the backyard has much detail, including the pool and other garden elements I have not yet made.

So I started with a general idea of everything, large and general to small and specific... it's the best way to go.

I had trouble learning the LE system of hierarchies and parent/child relationships and\or ownermatrix-s. It's a weird concept, but little by little I'm figuring it out (including ways to have encapsulated objects within clinton's layers ok). I'm also learning how to encapsulate and un-encapsulate cleanly (a weird thing that happens is an unparented object looses it's owner matrix and keeps it's old former matrix, thus displacing it once un-encapsulated - annoying as you've made changed to the sub object according to the whole.... Sometimes freezing it before un-encapsulating helps, but I am yet to figure it out for sure.

) Every program has a strange parent/child relationship, and it seems they are all different. But TS is especially different...

I am only using some quick pre-default textures for now, as I will do most UV's and textures elsewhere. But for creativity sake, some soft shadows, lights and things.. it certainly aids with the creativity!!!!!!

I also found the weight painting to be very good, easy and intuitive. I just miss the "blow up" tool and the "pinch" tool sometimes. But for weight map painting, it's very good. This program still has modelling leverage for sure

Enjoy. Keep having fun, keep living.

Steinie · Post by **Steinie** » 08 Dec 2011, 18:09

Draise,
I am curious if you are concerned with the poly count when you model? I never see the polys displayed in your work.
Also what you do to maintain quads vs tri's when moving from trueSpace to another application.

I remember you stating that you loose the UV mapping when importing from Scuptris to trueSpace?
I believe all you have to do is reapply the texture, the uv is not lost. (or did I read this wrong?)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 08 Dec 2011, 18:42

I try keep poly counts quite low, and usually I clean my meshes by hand to make sure I have no Ngons. I also run the mesh through Mudbox which tells me if I have a mesh error, ngons or other mesh related issues. It's very helpful, then in TS I fix the object and re-export. I usually keep my scenes to a max of 30K-50K polygons, which isn't much really...

I subdivide everything later if needed, in TS or in other programs. I work with subdivision A LOT. Truespace is hacking the polycount so far. For renders, I'd subdivide everything like crazy, but just for work and modelling it doesn't matter too much.

So sculptris *.obj's preserve the UV's? OH YEAH! It does too! My head experiment was perfect!!! I need to experiment more! I guess the obj export of some programs vary with their results. (softimage's obj's do not preserve the UV's.. lame.)

To preserve quads, I use LUUV polygon export (which is very accurate), or even this workspace OBJ export plugin which is also a good alternative (I prefer this one, tho slower, keeps some shaders and other things and is very accurate). Also, when you export and import to a program, set the autofacet to OFF, then the import should preserve the mesh with quads as it was.

But the main trick is... well make clean meshes, avoid Ngons, triangulate on purpose if needed (alternative to an Ngon) and make sure your quads are clean. Then export with autofacet OFF and import likewise.

Like my roof tiles:

I made a simple mesh with quads and tri's I made on purpose BEFORE exporting. I made sure the mesh was clean with no Ngons (a face with more than 5 vertices, I think that's what they are called..

) Then I'll export and import with no problem at all.
I live by SubDiv, so the mesh is simple. If I have a long shot, I cut the subdivision (off even), if I have a close shot, I increse it. I try to keep my meshes with only the necessary loops for SS to look about right at SD level of 1 in any program. Then other levels will usually follow it.
Sometime SS in other programs use different algorithms, but generally you don't loose overall shape.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 08 Dec 2011, 23:49

Update. It doesn't look like much, but I've added much more detail. I am about to start working on the foilage, but there needs much more work to be done. Enjoy the updates.

Updates:
Fence, walls, Veggie Garden, Guttering, Roof deformations, Window Layouts, Compost, Flower Boxes and other smaller adjustments. Feels like I didn't do much, looks like I didn't, but really it was something.

Once it's done, it would be awesome to make some cool lighting and effects just for fun, subdivide everything and see how far I can push this computer in TS. I wish TS was 64 bit! I wish I could buy it and develop it. It's a fun program.

Till next time!

theuns · Post by **theuns** » 09 Dec 2011, 10:37

looks great D, you're moving fast with the modeling, hey?

might wanna do a cube UV on the walls to even out the stone texture a bit

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 10 Dec 2011, 00:08

Lol, yeah.. a better UV would be nice. But with time....

Gosh I'm tired. I'm going home, eat, nap, drink some mojitos, then wake to party and chill with my friends. THE WEEKEND IS HERE!

So today had VEEEERRRRRYYYYY SLOOOOOOWWWWW progress. I used this Ivy generator, and had fun. Had troubles importing clean meshes, figured it out, did it, and then imported them into TS. I also made a little sandpit, and made the cobble stones as finals. It's shaping up. Also had a look into how to make foilage in vue, and how to import them into Softimage or truespace. Figured out a way of how to do it into TS. So that's cool.

But next week.. I'll work on more plants. i have eyt to make some character flowers, and to garnish the rest of the garden. I think that most of my modelling work in TS is done, and now I can start exporting and importing to my professional program. Sigh.. Right now I'm tired and sleepy.

The ivy leaves don't have alpha, and the UV's are still not done... tho I need to do them all. Little by little.

theuns · Post by **theuns** » 10 Dec 2011, 07:09

lookin good! how did you make the pond rocks and stepping stones?

i got Vue 8 Pioneer but haven't spent much time on it yet...

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 10 Dec 2011, 20:28

theuns wrote:how did you make the pond rocks and stepping stones?

Lol, thanks thanks =)
For the pond rock, I made about 7 different rocks in Vue (just clicked on "make rock"), exported them with a dummed down quality as *.obj's under "file/export object". I then imported them into TS and resized, translated, copied each into place.

The footpath stones were... actually polydrawn faces, then copied with pushed and pulled verticies, made each and everyone unique and to fit together. I later extruded these faces, beveled them twice, then moved and rotated them into place. I use the polydraw tool a lot. I later subdivided them.

To polydraw is WS...
1. get a plane
2. activate the polydraw tool and begin drawing your shape on the plane (like drawing with bezier curves, except it's strictly linear and you have complete control of how many vertices you need, a good alternative to curve drawing on MS).
3. Draw like a 9 vertice irregular shape loop on the plane
4. Copy the polyface, move it up
5. Cut out geometry
6. Copy geometry and push and pull verticies into a new shape when needed.

Then do what i did above. It's not hard, just took a little time, but not too much.

I did a quick search on making flat stone paths and cobble stones, but then i'd have to learn a complete program, how to install plugins, learn how to use the plugin, and really.. couldn't be bothered. So did it by hand.

An alternative is drawing your path with white stones on a black background in a 2D program (if needed, over a mesh with markers from your 3D world) by (maybe even adding a bit of noise) using a similar system of vectors, and then running a displacement map generator in TS or another program. Later, using weight painting or deformations, deform to shape or path in 3D space. Buuuut I chose to do it directly in 3d. Running a displacement map based cobblestone path requires much more steps, tho doing this achieves much better quality stones according to your drawing.

Peter · Post by **Peter** » 10 Dec 2011, 23:34

This is awesome

Keep it up.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 13 Dec 2011, 00:11

Here… Finally finished most Macro modelling for the scene. Also, added vines (a free ivy generator, just set up, click and grow! Download free http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/), cleaned most meshes, and finally imported them into Softimage to run through UV’s and textures in Mudbox/Paint.net among other programs. I will add more geometry and objects when needed (obviously built in TS and exported later, it’s easy there), and will also work with Vue for more foilage. Most backgrounds are actually being made by hand/painted and will be projected through different cutout type background layouts.

The sky I will probably make a few 360 maps from Vue, and throw them into half spheres.

I will also freeze the trees, as you can integrate Vue to Sofimage, but I am not sure how the renders will be.

Tutorialwise.. I need to start cramming in knowledge of hair, grass, foilage, textures, geometry painting, etc. I also should start learning ICE in softimage, which looks incredibly powerful!! But littly by little, no rush. It’s Christmas season, and the year’s work is over.. just take it chill…….

Oh, concerning Polycount, so far I'm within limits. I'm at 600000 tris, or like 300000 quads. This is lacking subdivision, so I'm not doing so bad. I think I can spare another 200000 tris for the final renders.

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 13 Dec 2011, 23:03

The work you do is awsome !
I´m alittle concerned about the poly count though... moving foliage out of vue into other software isnt
such a great idea.. If you have vue go the other way round and import your scene into Vue... the foliage works a lot better in there...
Peter

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 14 Dec 2011, 09:13

indeed, models look great. Very nice scene. I hope lights will be as good as the models.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 15 Dec 2011, 01:50

Hey!

I had a bit of slow progress, as my work hours are much less and it's the holiday season. But I have learnt enough of vue to make some cool cartoon looking skies and some plants.

I am now past the million polycount.. But I'm not worried. I set up a whole bunch of plants and textured them in Softimage and each render is under 20 seconds on my quadcore.

I am avoiding AO on leaves, and I haven't added lights, the rest of the textures, grass, other plants, other geometry, etc. But with time the wrinkles will be ironed out. Slow progress, but it's looking good.

Most of the trees I actually found included with trueSpace and the Parva texutre Pack. The other half, including the vines, I generated/made in vue or that free Ivy Generator.

Some of the green textures of the trees are a bit weird, and according to the art director, I'm still not sure how saturated I should make the scene look. I assume lots cause it's a kids show.

I will be rendering in HD 1080 16:9, so that will be fun. My prior work only was in NTSC 4:3 720x486. So that will add to renders. But the idea is with DOF, all of this will only be still or small camera movements with characters composited over. Production times will be cut. But not sure if we have a computer that can edit HD........

For the sky, I made it in Vue, and did a 360oX180o render, or a sphererical render. Then on a sphere... placed the sky. It looks quite convincing. I might play with displacement later to give it a bit of volumetrics... hey.. that's a good idea!

But for render times, poly count, and the amount of plants i've got, I'm quite happy. I don't know Vue enough to impliment a full scene with textures....

I had a bit of trouble with MentalRay's ray depth (due to leaves alpha layering up and blocking the rays).. but I figured it out, increased raydepth and fixed it. Didn't really change render times, just fixed the trees alpha textures.

I had an interestin talk with my boss on lighting. I love Pixar's lighting, and hope to implement suttle DOF, and charachter highlights and light rigs like they do, also different emotional play on shadows, colors, highlights and the like. I need to be very smart with it. My boss wants to keep render times below 3 minutes, but I would prefer 5 to 10 minutes a frame. Sucks we don't have a render farm yet.....

But so far the render times, for HD, are low. with composited characters and other things, it will look good and be fast considering the production.

BUUUUT... I have yet to create the toy house interior (expanded and unexpanded
Large house hallway
Talking Flowers
Other Flowerplants
Veggie garden plants

And textures.....

But I'm looking forward to the lighting and the compositing once I have everything built and textured!!!!

So here is a preview of the plants so far (not subdivided, yet, as to make them just a tad more organic). Sorry for the small tumbnails. Below you can check them out at larger sizes (not in order). Light is just 3 infinates. One main one with ambience, a low back fill and a rebound light from below. My boss liked it, but I thought it dead and sterile. Will work on it later =)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 15 Dec 2011, 01:53

RAYMAN wrote:The work you do is awsome !
I´m alittle concerned about the poly count though... moving foliage out of vue into other software isnt
such a great idea.. If you have vue go the other way round and import your scene into Vue... the foliage works a lot better in there...
Peter

Yeah... I exported the plants at their lowest, cleaned the meshes in TS then imported them into Softimage. As far as I know, softimage has a vue plugin directly (including it's render engine I think)! But I don't know vue enough as to know what I'm doing.

Your concerns were valid tho, I had to dum the meshes down quite a bit.

pugman 1 · Post by **pugman 1** » 15 Dec 2011, 05:02

http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueS ... derCow.htm" [b[/
Here is a good link for vue.by the way very nice work man ,
Love it. So far

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 15 Dec 2011, 12:47

the best place to learn about vue is at geekatplay
http://www.geekatplay.com/tutorials7.php"
Peter

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 15 Dec 2011, 21:27

Thanks guys! Now I need to sit down and learn more vue!

(Scary...Where am I going to get the time!? by July I have to produce, with 2 other kids, a good 5.5 hours worth of animation...

)

Loving the potential of Vue for sure.

Here is the UV's all set in Softimage.

Later I'll add more updates. Added flowers, herbs and more to the veggie garden.

Also started texturing everything. I am still yet to make more characters.... Boss is breathing down my kneck! NO more leaisure experimentation!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 16 Dec 2011, 05:00

The render times have quinticled. I am a little concerned. I have set up a VERY basic sunlight and with only 3 ambientl lights with soft shadows (cut on AO/GI/and FG) with one other infinite light as a sun.... I am getting up to 5 to even 10 minutes a frame.

I cut most textures to lower than 2048x2048 and I think i need to keep everyting under 1024x1024.

i am thinking to actually try my layered render system, using shadow catchers and caster with veggetation with their own lights, scenery with there lights, other finer objects and their lights, and a series of other things as layers. I also have to get some exact average render times before we start production. Then I have to time each render plus the composite.

The challenge is GREAT! With this project, I almost garuntee that it wouldl be Colombias best!! =)

But the rendertimes are worrying.. but then again we aren't really testing the renders on the I7's, only my good old quad core...

So tommorrow.. more textures and some layering compositing experiments. =)

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... a3yvqf0qd2

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... 0ead483au0

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 16 Dec 2011, 21:39

just as a test I was interested how Vue could do with the filesize and ecosystems so I modeled the house with about same amount of polycount......
well at most i had around 15000 buildings in there......

Peter

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 16 Dec 2011, 22:36

LMAO!!! Good one!!!! I need to learn Vue more!! Lol! Nice one for sure!

How long the render take for the 15K houses? (assuming that would be a good 100,000 tri's by 15? = 1.5 trillion tris?)

I'm learning pass based rendering, I'll update you on my rendertimes once I figure out good figures!

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 16 Dec 2011, 22:47

Draise wrote:LMAO!!! Good one!!!! I need to learn Vue more!! Lol! Nice one for sure!

How long the render take for the 15K houses? (assuming that would be a good 100,000 tri's by 15? = 1.5 trillion tris?)

I'm learning pass based rendering, I'll update you on my rendertimes once I figure out good figures!

I did not note it down but it was short around 5 minutes...
but i made this render for you it took around 20 minutes on an 7i with 16gig of ram ....
Its exactly 479 436 585 polygons ...in words over fourhundred million polygons.... WITH haze and fog turned on....

Peter

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 16 Dec 2011, 23:06

RAYMAN wrote: I did not note it down but it was short around 5 minutes...
but i made this render for you it took around 20 minutes on an 7i with 16gig of ram ....
Its exactly 479 436 585 polygons ...in words over fourhundred million polygons.... WITH haze and fog turned on....

Peter

That's not bad!! Thanks for the picture! *felt loved

Vue does look good. The ecosystem looks incredible! Did it take you long figuring out how to paint ecosystems?

hmmm... Tho the granulated GI and AA doesn't look too good.... I would LOVE to spend 20 minutes on a beast like machine like yours on every frame to get forests like the such, but really cause I'm rendering 20 minute length episode, I can't dabble in the luxery!!! We don't have a render farm yet......

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 16 Dec 2011, 23:10

Draise wrote:
RAYMAN wrote: I did not note it down but it was short around 5 minutes...
but i made this render for you it took around 20 minutes on an 7i with 16gig of ram ....
Its exactly 479 436 585 polygons ...in words over fourhundred million polygons.... WITH haze and fog turned on....

Peter
That's not bad!! Thanks for the picture! *felt loved

Vue does look good. The ecosystem looks incredible! Did it take you long figuring out how to paint ecosystems?

hmmm... Tho the granulated GI and AA doesn't look too good.... I would LOVE to spend 20 minutes on a beast like machine like yours on every frame to get forests like the such, but really cause I'm rendering 20 minute length episode, I can't dabble in the luxery!!! We don't have a render farm yet......

I dont have time to setup the render correctly i was only interested in the render times realy.. would have to optimise aa setings and everything and there is fog and haze too...
it took me 10 minutes to learn to paint ecosystems.. !
Peter

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 16 Dec 2011, 23:20

Jaja, i guess it is easy to learn!!!
And good one on the experimenting.

I made a 360 sky for this project in vue, and amped up the quality and rendered myself a good 4000 pixel wide environment map. But it took many hours to render!

Do you use Vue a lot?

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 16 Dec 2011, 23:38

Draise wrote:Jaja, i guess it is easy to learn!!!
And good one on the experimenting.

I made a 360 sky for this project in vue, and amped up the quality and rendered myself a good 4000 pixel wide environment map. But it took many hours to render!

Do you use Vue a lot?

you need to learn vue and the settings realy......a map with 4000 wide should take no more the 5-10 minutes.on a simple quadcore.... its all down to the athmosphere settings.....
you can gain and lose a lot of time...
yes I only use 2 render engines now Vue and Thea....
The reasdon is to get used to render engines and getting the maximum out of them you cant jump between dozens of render engines..
Also the material systems are so deep that its very very difficult to remember the best settings in all...
Plus its better to have hundreds of materials for one render engine rather then just a few material for many....
The raeson i use vue is because it lets you make bigger setups with lower spec equipment..
Peter

Tommy · Post by **Tommy** » 18 Dec 2011, 19:24

Draise I have followed your work here in United3Dartists and I am really impressed of what you are doing. My question is: How do you get the time to do all this amazing works.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 18 Dec 2011, 21:23

@ Tommy

Well...haha, good question. Well maybe the first thing is... I don't have a girlfriend!!!

Second, it's my job. By grace I got given/found a dream job with a good art director that gives me the opportunity to study and do mostly what I want (minus having to work with Softimage and providing I deliver). I am also addicted to work, so I work 10 to 14 hour workdays during high season, sometimes sleeping at work to get more hours; and on weekends I party hard to balance it, lots of friends, people, family, food, sleep, dance and alcohol.

A good work ethic for me is.. never work where you sleep/eat/rest/socialize; example: at home. I get so distracted so easily. So I go far away to work, generally by bike (keep the flat nerd butt healthy and pump blood to the brain, also to aid sleep) and when I'm there, turn the internet off to focus and work. Only use the internet for tutorials or a mental break.

This month is slow cause it's holidays and we just finished a major production, so we can take it easy.

But with that said.. most of the projects I work on aren't technically "mine" because it's for work and mainly television.

My private projects... on the other hand... take forever, if at all........

But when you find a job in animation or any production for television, gaming, or cinematography.... you get paid to do what you love, and it's the best way to go.

Then all the time you have to spend working, the 9 to 5.. well.. is time spent on doing what you love.

@ RAYMAN

Good idea on learning only a couple of render engines. Cause of work I have to stick to the industry standard using Mental Ray...... but I would love to learn Vue, I agree totally, for entire worlds, it's the way to go!! I will experiment with compositing the more I learn it.
I would love to learn how to use the beta of Arnold, which I found online somewhere, or some other GPU based engine, but I have yet to find one I like that also does good animation and integrates into Softimage seemlessly.

Do you have other work done with Vue to showcase? Would be awesome if you setup some tutorials to your work. I'd study them for sure!!

RAYMAN · Post by **RAYMAN** » 19 Dec 2011, 13:14

I will post some of my new stuff pretty soon.. I´ve got an endless list of projects that i´ve started with that got halted when my old
computer broke down ( harddiscs).. losing your harddiscs twice is a bit...uuummmm distracting.....

Peter

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 23 Dec 2011, 04:08

Last day of work for the year

but this is it!!!

I did a pass based render, and have this final render (with some shadow and apha errors) at 00:12:20 a frame at 720P HD.

The numbers are satisfactory for this quadcore, and I am yet to work on a depth pass, maybe change lights and work on an AO pass and then work on my compositing workflow.

My boss if happy with the numbers so far, I am not. But our production flow will be smart.

So, a wide shot at 12 minutes and a half is not so bad... not so bad. Not bad for my first Pass based render!!! Working on it! Loving on how to do passess!! =)

Goal:
00:09:00

Pass1
00:01:25

Pass2
00:04:40
(trees & low quality lights)

Pass3
00:02:15

Pass4
00:01:19

Pass5
00:01:02

Pass6&7
00:01:40

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 10 Jan 2012, 22:44

OK! Today was the official first day of work for the year! I am so happy!!! I love 3D. But tonight I'm going to DJ the night away!

No progress, just flower models! I have to make like 5 or 6 of them, and they all have personalities, and talk.

I'll start a new WIP.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 17 Jan 2012, 23:55

I have been working hard on passess.. because I'm still learning a lot and it's a complicated idea. But it's cool. I feel like I'm cheating the system when I do it right!

So I got ideas on Z depth and DOF through compositing, learned how to seperate and speed up rendering of foilage, with AO and nice shadows, learn layers, learn a a number of things. I minimalized my scene and made these ones below. I am starting to get an idea of it. It's good to make your passess seperately before the whole scene so you know what goes where and what shaders for whatever function you need. Good to keep organized, cause I can see with complex scenes, one can get dozens if not hundreds of passess if all else fails.

Also changing things and making things look pretty without waiting is nice... =)

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 18 Jan 2012, 10:43

hah, that seems like alot of work :) (fence)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 18 Jan 2012, 16:16

Well...... I made maybe 3 or 4 slats, all random, then I made the posts, all copied, and then some long poles. I then deformed the fence to something fun, and then copied and pasted random slats into place. Didn't take too long for some good results! But i made sure my UV's were good so when I slapped on the texture, it would look nice.
The texture is only one, and it was wide, so I could change the UV's a bit to make it look randomish.

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 18 Jan 2012, 20:58

Draise what software did you use for rendering.
Did you do the clouds in the VUE or are these clouds ones you painted.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 18 Jan 2012, 21:28

jeffroig wrote:Draise what software did you use for rendering.
Did you do the clouds in the VUE or are these clouds ones you painted.

Yes, I did do the clouds in Vue, as a 360 degree spherical render. It was quite large, with good quality. Later, in Softimage using Mental Ray as my render engine, I'm doing the passes.

Mental Ray is integrated into Softimage, so it makes life easier. Mental Ray is slow, but atleast I don't have to depend on external software for passess and the like.... It also is industrious with it's quality, so stars for that one!

I have the beta of Arnold Render Engine, which is fast. But I haven't experimented with it enough, and I don't know how to write batch scripts for that engine.

Here are some more passess with more foilage. But right now I have to make a poster for work. ASAP. So today this maybe all that I do!

With this lot, I have 6 passess. Diffuse, Sky, Shadow, AO, Leaf Alpha, Z Depth

I still have some troubles with the Alpha of the diffuse pass, in otherwords.. I have to increase ray depth. I also need to work on my AO a bit more, put in more soft shadows where I can. (pardon the large images!)

This one has some bushes hidden.. due to my lack of 3D conceptualizing of 2D like passess.. So I need to be a bit... more clever.

This one has 10 passess - 8 minutes.

But it's looking better. Still don't like the sun tho, will turn it down and try to amp up the AO.

Oh, and the composition I am doing in Softimage 2012 itself. It has a powerful compositing side to the program, equal to that of Nuke or Autodesk's Composite or other node based compositing software. It is nice to use if you are familiar with Softimage.

I prefer node based compositing, tho hard to get the hang of at first, over Aftereffects or Premiere and it's linear stacks. Recommend!

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 18 Jan 2012, 23:05

Please dont take this the wrong way as this is not in any way a bad comment.
I see that you are using so many different pieces of software to get the end result and have suggestions for you.
Why not use Maya and the renderman software and create a dome that you apply your clouds to.
This will give you the same effect and render time will increase.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 19 Jan 2012, 00:12

....huh??????? The sky IS a dome with a 360 sphere texture on it.

I'ts a seperate pass, and it only takes a couple of seconds to spit out.
Thanks for the advice! I'm kinda using only one software now, Softimage 2012, because it has compositing and everything else Maya does, plus ICE (have yet to learn it).

Considering Maya... I don't like Maya, as I tried it and it's workflow wasn't to my taste. I found Softimage closer to TS in it's workflow (mouse based manipulation of objects, less prone to engineers and their linear thinking, more intuitive with nice features that can work nearly realtime with ICE).

So yeah.. for robustness, I like Softimage, it's a platform Maya was actually based off back in the day. It's the prime software I'm using.

These are most of the programs I use, which isn't too bloated.

Modeling: trueSpace 7.61 beta 8, Softimage, Mudbox, Sculptris
Textures: Mudbox, Paint.net, Photoshop, Fireworks
Uv's: 3Dcoat, Softimage
Rigging, shading, layout, animation, rendering and everything else: Softimage
Compositing: Softimage, Aftereffects
Other: Vue
Editing: Premiere

Mental Ray and Arnold(*future) are integrated into Softimage like Renderman is to Maya, I think.

Like most major industries like Weta Digital or others, I'd assume a large arsenal of software is used. Mari was developed and programmed specifically for Avatar and District 9. Many softwares are good at one thing over another; so sometimes mixing and matching for a quick and easy result is better than wrestling with one program that is strong in one thing and weak in the other. But the trick is not spreading yourself out too thin, agreed agreed..

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 19 Jan 2012, 00:47

You do some nice work and I was just curious as to why so many different softwares.
My work flow is this.
Modeling: TS 4.3 and Argile
Texturing and Bump maps: Argile
Rigging based upon project: Poser or Maya
Rendering: Maya(renderman) Poser (FireFly)
Effects: Maya(Built in) Poser (Misc Plugins)
Editing of video: Premiere CS5
Post Effects: Particle Illusions

Steinie · Post by **Steinie** » 19 Jan 2012, 12:57

You both are correct by using the strengths of various software when creating your projects.

btw
My workflow is #2 pencil by Faber Castell---> Calagari-trueSpace 7.61---> Microsoft Windows 7 64 bit trashcan...

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 19 Jan 2012, 16:59

OK, Dad.....LOL
No argument here...

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 19 Jan 2012, 17:18

LMAO!!! Very good that one!!!!

Need to learn that software, Windows 7 64 bit Trashcan!!! hehehe

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 19 Jan 2012, 20:03

Draise I like the work you are doing.
It shows a lot of enthusiasm and personality.
I am always wondering the reason for people using one program over another and if there is a benefit.
Here is a couple images of a new character I just started on.
I may do another tutorial on modeling with more detail.
I actually thought of doing a webinar so that anyone who is interested could follow me in real time as I do the design.
The only problem is that it takes more than a couple of hours to do one so it would have to be done of a few days.
Let me know what you think of the new design.
The end result will be a country hick (southern man/ hillbilly) wearing no shirt or shoes, only wearing pants and suspenders and has a butt crack that shows every time he bends over.

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 19 Jan 2012, 21:40

Draise,
This is for you as I do not know many that will be able to read this.
Usted hacer un muy buen trabajo en la elaboración de modelos, sigan haciendo un buen trabajo.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 20 Jan 2012, 00:53

jeffroig wrote:Draise,
This is for you as I do not know many that will be able to read this.
Usted hacer un muy buen trabajo en la elaboración de modelos, sigan haciendo un buen trabajo.

Gracias amigo! Voy a seguir haciendolo!

Nice work on your Hillbilly! You should totally make atleast a tutorial or WIP for your dude. He looks cool. Is he gonna be animated? I love animation and will try to pursue it by all means possible!

A Webinar would be cool, CG society does that and they do well with their forums, it would be fun to do here! =) Do you know how to do the such? What software do you need to do that?

jeffroig · Post by **jeffroig** » 20 Jan 2012, 00:58

I have seen the webinars done but do not know how or what software is needed.
I know there are sites like huddle that will allow you to do them but people have to sign up.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 21 Jan 2012, 03:36

I think a webinar may come on!

anyway, back to work.

I am getting discouraged with the quality I'm working at. It still is taking too long for the render times, tho i have doubled the quality with the same time, instead of 1 beauty shot, i have 11 passess, 3 layers, and with that, under the same time, double quality. The 3rd layer, or the one with the animation.. well I still need to work on that I'm slowly chipping away with quality to get things. I am pushing to see how far I can go for the shortest times. I have yet to really dull down some passess.

So.. I have friends waiting for me for the past 2 hours, i gotta get some rum and party the rest of the night away. I have to clean the scene up, learn how to instance pass shaders instead of seperate objects, bring the overall scene size down.

Keeping so many elements tidy is hardwork!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 22 Jan 2012, 02:03

NEWS! I am still averaging 10 to 13 full minutes on a quadcore. Monday we are getting a network system sorted so we have to I7’s and 2 I5’s rendering frames. I have a batch scriptor and it should pipe out any frames i send the machines over the networks over. Nothing complicated I hope! So compaired to my first renders, I have doubled the quality with AO and better lighting all in the same time! Hurrah!

So with a full render over a network at this rate, we will average a 720P frame every 3 or 4 minutes. With only the animation pass (little house, tree, characters) then a high quality frame should take only 30s to 2 minutes!
So looking forward to that. I am soon migrating from my i5 to an i7 as my workstation. I am happy bout that! But I just need an HDMI cable.

It has been a good day. Now back to modelling the other elements and characters and soon networking.

Loving this project!

This one had some masking errors, but i figured it out in the end.

The quality of the masks of this one is low, but atleast i resolved the composition problems! Including compositing alpha into a Z-depth pass, compositing seperate AO and shadows over leaves, and compositing 4 (sky, back trees, garden, animation)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 23 Jan 2012, 21:57

Starting more work on other characters! I am yet to start rigging... but that will come with time! My director dude is eager to start animating. i am not ready yet! But I will make the other characters and character design animations later. Lots more work! Lots more props, lots more compositiong and soon to come rigging and animation... Crikey this will be something. I am glad I don't have to work hard on scripts or acting or sound! Other do that....

Oh, and now i'm soon gonna get a render farm up and ready. =) two i7's and a two i5's with a p4 server! Nothing amazing, but it will help. Come to think of it, I need to go shopping for a hub.

Enjoy my next character!
vi ... f=5&t=3239

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 21 Feb 2012, 23:25

Original Blog Post

Finally devided background from animation into two seperate lighter scenes. Makes scripting harder, but it keeps the load times for animating easier. It’s looking good. This scene contains most of the new characters I’ve worked on. Enjoy!

Now to rig the girl.

marcel · Post by **marcel** » 21 Feb 2012, 23:32

Good work Draise.

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 22 Feb 2012, 09:07

too much of DOF, but otherwise very nice work!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 22 Feb 2012, 16:32

bitkar wrote:too much of DOF, but otherwise very nice work!

Yes. I was pushing it up to see HOW blurry I could get it.

I'm still figuring out the style.

The series will have lot's of DOF cause it's how a child would notice the world, only focuses on small things and ignoring the big world. I also need to make the world not look so big to the child, but warm and comfy. When there is lot's of DOF, it looks like you are in a miniature world... if I do it right.

I just need to balance how much of it, and I think a good third of the screen should be crisp... What do you think? @Bitkar: What would you recommend?

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 22 Feb 2012, 20:35

Is that better? Still working on my passess. Working on also some color clipping which is causing errors. You can notice it on the AO alpha channel on the plants near the end......

MikomDude · Post by **MikomDude** » 22 Feb 2012, 21:28

Nice but could you make the animations a little bit longer? I could hardly see it before it ended

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 23 Feb 2012, 09:36

that scene really looks "alive"... very nice work.

ps. try to render such test anim in 15fps or slow it down in some software, usually even 50% speed is still ok.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 23 Feb 2012, 16:59

Ah yes. Good idea.
My father does puppet television and knows of an opensource interpolating software that can interpolate and stretch and morph frames. I will try it once I get the hang of it. Would be cool if I only have to render 15 frames a second for a good quality 30 frames. But all in due time!

My father made an example above.

That quick camera pan was just an overnight test render, see if there were any errors in the passes. Pardon the speed!! Would be cool to see how I can interpolate it.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 06 Mar 2012, 23:04

Working on... on... the last rig for the pilot (the tree). It was slow today, took it relaxed. Will finish the rig and start a trial animation to test the render farm.

Any questions feel free!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 15 Mar 2012, 20:57

Work has progressed with it's ups and downs. I am not network expert or render wrangler. I had to reinstall one computer, so got a techie to do that. I like Colombia, everything is so cheap here when it comes to that kind of thing!

So now I'm doing render tests, characterization and the like. I have finished the rig for the tree, learnt how to make shape and expression slider controlers (control aspects and expression - linked attributes to sliders) to create something. I tried a free screen capture software, and it sucks. I have to ask my father which one he uses again, so I can make better tutorials for you all.. Like below.

The second latter of the video contains another set of controls, some shapes for lipsync. I don't have the SXC, nor the L, nor the CH-TH. Because he has no tongue. I have yet to make one and link it to the shapes. (another experiment...)

But one thing I do have is a 1000MBs switcher, and 5 PC's more or less. I also moved to an i7 with a good video card, and two huge 120 watt speakers beside the dual monitors (one analog, the other LED, to test quality) I don't yet have a server to fully use the network as a renderfarm, because the file sharing is now almost useless without the server. I have to mirror everything on each computer for efficient rendering. I will get a server soon.... with RAID harddrives and dedicated server OS. Hopefully Ubuntu, is that good?
What do you use?

But now I'm a little more organized, and I tried some trial animations with the tree. Accidently I wiped it, so now I'm going to try again with another animation with the bird. I am needing to try many new animation tecniques.

I'll keep up the progress!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 17 Mar 2012, 00:35

My upcoming animation: (a sneak preview still!)

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 20 Mar 2012, 22:37

NEARLY done the rendering. TOok some errors in the scripts, passes and the like. SLowly but surely I'm optimizing the scenes to render quicker. I still don't have my network optimized, because I still don't have a server. But I need a techie to hook it up. My skills are to their max in that regard.

Steinie · Post by **Steinie** » 21 Mar 2012, 11:47

Fantasic work as always Draise!

What program did you use to setup the controls for the tree?
When you animate this scene do you work frame by frame adjusting the sliders or do you run a script?

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 21 Mar 2012, 18:51

Hey steinie!

I use Softimage and it's inbuilt expression editor (once you figure it out, it's very easy). You can create custom parameters that link up to anything, from transforms to shapes to attributes. So I can link multiple objects transforms and multiple shapes to one slider making life easier.

I animate with keyframes, adjusting when needed, and I don't really go frame by frame as it's with keyframes..

I sometimes save an "expression" into a clip and then plonk them onto the mixer to use accordingly.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 30 Mar 2012, 04:46

Hmmm... Nearly done this.

Test rendering is going well, animation rendering is not, I have had problems with RGB and Alpha clips which screw up my frames due to un unified sampling... Also my masks layers, after many many tries of getting it right didn't have enough quality to have crips clean composition. But now it's good.

I also figured out a cheap way for a bloom.

Using a Luma extract, Luma cull, and a Gaussian blur with an Over composition, you can get cheap blooms! Very handy! Mixed with the DOF, the quality is very nice.

I have some issues with corrupt scenes, so I have lost textures, shifting between workstations often does that apparently..... But I have nearly got my network optimized to run batch scripts while I work. I just need one new lan cable, maybe two.

I am also figuring out problems with the rigs, and things to finetune, textures, shadows, etc. I may darken the AO of the whole scene to give it more depth. I also need to model more things..... But So far things are good.

It's starting to look good. The bloom works miracles!

I also have to be careful with my camera.... compositions.. this one is too close. I also gotta fine tune and characterize the girl so I don't get problems with the cloths.. Cloths are so restricting......

This guy will be crazy.

There will be many elements in the story. Not sure what my codirector will think of me sharing these pictures, since these are for a sales pitch here. I hope we kick ass.

This guy is all excited about it! Like me..

She hopes we sell this product.

He's a little worried about it....

But no matter what, this tree knows it will be ok.

Wellllllllllllllllllllll maybe.

So all the preperation and preproduction is done! NEARLLY... still lacking a lot, but I'm not surprised since really this is still a one man show concering the graphics....

Hope you like the pictures and my new family!!

pugman 1 · Post by **pugman 1** » 30 Mar 2012, 05:14

This is brilient work Draise i love the cartoon effect .its just perfect
Cheers ralph

bitkar · Post by **bitkar** » 01 Apr 2012, 18:36

this is very good looking.. i like the girls especially and her face, eyes, it just works well. But i like all of that.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 10 Apr 2012, 17:11

With some clever composition, filters, new bloom, and other hue/luma and gamma changes.. turned a day scene into night! Magical!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 04 May 2012, 21:23

I am having soooo many problems with rendering lately. I made a minute animation as a character test of the little blue guy.

But oh the problems that arised.

1. A render node wasn't writing through the network nor communicating with the server. Solution: Reinstalled the node and started the system it from 0 again
2. Render nodes couldn't run the same batch script and access the same scene and write cascading frames to the server without rigging interpretation errors. Solution: upgraded to Softimage 2013 with identicle setting on all nodes.
3. Render passes corrupted randomly causing a mysterious error in the batch scripts. Unsolved. I found clues that I cannot "Save As" over a scene as it will corrupt the files. Temporary Solution to already corrupt files: Merge scene with a default scene, save as new scene. Possible solution: render to 1080p instead of 720p at 30fps.
4. Random squares of missing RGB in random frames of some passess. Solution: unknown.

I hate render wrangling.......

froo · Post by **froo** » 05 May 2012, 00:10

Hang in there Draise! You'll get it sorted!

theuns · Post by **theuns** » 26 May 2012, 07:33

love the look and feel D, just keep going

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 28 May 2012, 02:35

Thanks! I have been keeping on going! After a month of working hard on the issues, I have solved most of the issues mentioned above.

I have also worked on an animation, did a complete 1 minute short for a the little blue character and how he came to be. It was a challenging experiment, but in the process I've managed to iron out the rendering kinks. Now I am finetuning the blue guys rig and facial expressions for lipsyncing, etc.

I have yet to test and characterize the girl, also ready shapes and lipsyncing abilities.

I hope to get permission to upload some of the characterization of the blue guy soon.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 25 Jun 2012, 20:02

Cardboard Box!

After our sound engineer and script director plus his army of script writers quit due to our last project not having huge turnovers for his temperamental desires.... we finally found another sound engineer and starting writing the pilot scripts ourselves. We have another actor who may be able to write the other scripts.

So we have finally finished our first 20 minute pilot script! And we are running out of time. Due to technical difficulties, people jumping ship and other issues... we are now 3 or 4 months behind schedule.

But that's ok. We soon will be starting to sell the product to the national television here. But I will have to cut corners and make a short trailer to sell it, instead of the pilot. But I will work on the pilot meanwhile.

We nearly have all the voices, and we have a backup studio to do the recording, so all is well.

Meanwhile, I started making the props for the Pilot! Including a tornado later on, and these cardbox vehicles.

Enjoy!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 25 Jun 2012, 20:26

Done! I think.. till boss wants whatever is left. Will show it to him now. I love tS WS, no rendering to see it done!

It may need some axles, and some textures, crayon drawings, etc... but that won't be hard. I still need to make a plane also.

MikomDude · Post by **MikomDude** » 25 Jun 2012, 20:52

Great model!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 25 Jun 2012, 21:28

Thanks!

Bass came and told me what to change, also made some quick textures for it.

Steinie · Post by **Steinie** » 25 Jun 2012, 22:01

No wooden dowels for the axles?
Looks great!

theuns · Post by **theuns** » 25 Jun 2012, 22:30

Wow, very nice Draise! I love it...

Where did you get the textures for the cardboard boxes? Looks very realistic!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 25 Jun 2012, 22:34

theuns wrote:
Where did you get the textures for the cardboard boxes? Looks very realistic!

http://texturezine.com/category/textures/cardboard

And the drawings I did with my Wacom Bamboo Creative tablet and GIMP2.8.

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 26 Jun 2012, 00:07

Steinie wrote:No wooden dowels for the axles?
Looks great!

I made some... axles out of wood or metal. It looks much better now! Thanks for the idea!

Draise · Post by **Draise** » 26 Jun 2012, 02:28

Made an airplane for the second part of the pilot! Fun! Gotta get approval from my boss, but nearly done!

Thanks all for the compliments.

froo · Post by **froo** » 26 Jun 2012, 02:33

That is really cool draise!

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