From dawn to dusk - animation

[Jonathan]

Hi All,

Thought I would try something different. 600 frames took 2 weeks to render. Settings were:

Detail 0.8
AA 8
1/16th First Samples
1200 x 400, AR 2
GI Detail and Quality 2

I wasn't 100% happy with the sun - trying to get it to run in an arc from 0 to 180 proved challenging. I started at Heading 0, elevation -20 from frame 0 to 300. On frame 301 I changed the heading to 180, elevation 79 and animated it down to 0. The shadows however indicate that the sun isn't quite running in the correct path...suggestions would be great!

Other than that I thought it was a useful experiment in using a number of different animation keys.

Trees / Plants by Xfrog and Walli.

And here it is! http://www.flickr.com/photos/69960437@N05/6389261105/

[Jonathan]

Oh, and I know the sun appears through the hill - when I tried a test render with "receive shadows from surfaces" I realised I would be approaching retirement age before the renders would be complete. I don't quite understand why the sun appears through terrain, but am sure the guys at Planetside plan to fix it!

[Oshyan]

Pretty nice time lapse effect you've done here. I like the inclusion of the moon at the beginning as well.

To do animation of the sun beyond e.g. 0 degrees heading or 90 degrees vertical, simply add/subtract and type in the appropriate values manually. In other words, if you wanted to go from 340 degrees to 30 degrees, you would start with a key frame at 340, then do a key frame with the value of 390, which is the 20 degrees past your starting point to reach 360 plus the 30 degrees beyond 0.

- Oshyan

[Gkos]

Thar is a really nice animation

[inkydigit]

beautiful, great track too!

[Jonathan]

Thanks for your kind comments! For my next trick I want to see whether water can be animated.....this could be a long project

[Redwolf]

nice animation, i done exactly the same thing yesterday, a sunset and emerging stars....ill post a youtube link in a bit

[Jonathan]

Sounds cool! Look forward to seeing it