First longer animation and my first shared TG work till yet (WIP).

Started by Bjur, May 08, 2013, 05:42:12 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Bjur

A non GI test of a old scene but with actual different settings i used in my young TG life six months ago.

A GI version will follow as this test is just a part of several comparisons and pre tests for a planned sci-fi short, which shall takes place on/around an icy, distant planet or moon.

There may be a wip topic opened by me in the future with more actual scene contents in it´s final resolutions.

My original footage ist almost not choppy and includes better quality without flickers, surface and shadow problems (popping).
I compressed the original footage with recommended Vimeo settings. Unfortunately compressed it Vimeo again and even harder after my HD video was uploaded.  :-\

Hope you can enjoy my 1st shared work at least a little bit..

Alex


[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/65726318[/vimeo]
~ The annoying popularity of Vue brought me here.. ~


cyphyr

www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

TheBadger

It has been eaten.

Bjur

Thx guys!

Your comments give me additional motivation.  :)

Still asking myself what does the trick for a perfect upload at given recommendations at different tubes in the nets for the hail of quality and a smooth playback..
~ The annoying popularity of Vue brought me here.. ~

Bjur

Another test was done. It was the first time i was using GI.

I was uploading to YouTube now because on Vimeo, you are limited to just 1 HD video upload per week with a basic membership.
Not the right place if you are trying to upload and compare more than one render with different compression settings, just to see which looks better and replays less choppy stream wise.

Choppy wise, i can see/stream on YouTube blockbuster movie trailers down to private shit, all seems fine and flowing.
But if i try to watch my own uploaded stuff, with all possible settings tested, from recommended YouTube settings (also YouTube presets of Premiere), up to extrem quality's and down again, to oldschool camcorder style resolutions, it results into worst "Oh my G.. -.-" experiences stream/flow wise for my own videos.

I don't know what i am doing wrong..

BTW., i get a better base quality of compressed sequences when i render the original sequence direct from/in Premiere.
My first EXR sequence was a lossless, max. quality AVI render, rendered in AFX and got compressed later. Strange thing is, a compression of the uncompressed AVI sequence resulted in less sharpness compared to a direct TIF compression render in Premiere.
Would have used Premiere, but that wasn't possible this time as Premiere cant handle EXRs native like AFX can do.

But there is a Premiere plug-in out there for using EXRs i just haven't tested it till yet. I guess it's not for free..

Here the result of my GI render of the same sequence above, but now rendered as TIF sequence. Unfortunately i forgot to switch off contrast (0.25) which isn't needed if you are render EXRs, this of course ended up in better optics without any postwork now compared with the non GI EXR sequence. For settings pls read the description.

*sidenote

Rendertime 600 frames non GI: 26 hours
Rendertime 600 frames GI (5 frames cached, 2, 2, 8, SSP on): 46 hours But at least: Also no shadow pops and flickering!


~ The annoying popularity of Vue brought me here.. ~

Dune


Bjur

Quote from: Dune on May 24, 2013, 02:52:25 PM
It takes ages to load, can that be?

Hmmn.. On YouTube the grey "load-bar" is for me like instantly at 100%. But the replay is bucking nevertheless.

The size of the uploaded and compressed file was just 32 MB (@ 13 kBit/s). And YouTube compressed it again to even smaller sizes i bet.

And i cant believe that YouTube could have problems replaying real 30 FPS.
Thats the framerate i was using all the time instead of 29,97 FPS for the everywhere so called "30 FPS".

Found an interesting article:

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Encoding-for-YouTube-How-to-Get-the-Best-Results-83876.aspx

Nothing rly new there but 1-2 things could be interesting for doing further compression and upload tests.


~ The annoying popularity of Vue brought me here.. ~

Simius Strabus

Why stop dreaming when you wake up?

iMac i7 2.8GHz 8Gb

Dune


Hannes


Mahnmut

Hi Bjur,
Very impressive iceworld!
The only thing I´d add would be some more contrast between translucent, specular darker ice and the snowy rough kind you have.
Best Regards,
Jan

Bjur

Thx m8s..  :)

Quote from: Mahnmut on July 03, 2013, 11:11:26 PM
Hi Bjur,
Very impressive iceworld!
The only thing I´d add would be some more contrast between translucent, specular darker ice and the snowy rough kind you have.
Best Regards,
Jan

Thank you Jan.  :)

You are definitely right about contrasts, colors and stuff (in the case of a final animation).

But i need to create my final scenes with "relative neutral" contrasts, colors and a fix, linear gamma, as my sequence outputs will be high res. EXR's which i want to rape later in the post when final gradings, possible particles and 2nd/3rd party contents comes together.

Also, the main focus itself wont lay on the landscape or close ups of it that much.

Unfortunately i'm render all TG scenes and other needed stuff at home i guess.

In the end, there wont be lots of layers or special nodes for simulating a shiny, sparkling and realistic reflecting snow in all - for the sake of render time.
The snow and surface itself needs to be kept much simple as possible with a minimum number of surface layers and fractal break up's, even in final scenery's.
I'm aiming at average ~5-6 minutes per GI frame @ 2880 x 1210 pix. with low detail and AA and tweaked GI. Final short resolution will be 1080p.

I hope TG3 will be able to safe me some additional render time per frame.

But the good thing is, in animations generally, scenes don't last longer then just a few seconds most of the time.
Imagine slight motion blurring, particles here and there and other moving and focused contents.
Most of the high detail things which give you a "real" or more realistic feel or vision you would like or need for enjoying a high res. still for example, won't be seen or recognized that much in most cases animation wise. They are just killing your private render capacities.

I just hope this fact will work radical well to my favours too..

Nevertheless, with own hardware/render capacities and limitations in mind, it's hard to find a balanced look for an animation which isn't looking too "simple" like usual in game game graphics or just "cheap" in all by using simplest terrain setups, meh..  :P

These days/weeks i want to give additional layers a try for proper snow intersection, additional colors and/or surface breakups. Texture mapping is another point.
Sunset and cloud scenes are also planned. So there may be some more base layers/fractal breakups in the future - beside my actual minimal TG base setup for the project.

Here is a kind of fast "concept art" i just have thrown together for this post now. It shows my approach of creating content even with simplest setups which i hope may work for my project and wished-for minimum visuals. Of course this example is shrinked and compressed and there won't be any "old school" Space Shuttles from the internets in the end..! ^^

~ The annoying popularity of Vue brought me here.. ~

efflux

This is really cool. It was a good idea to keep the landscape simple but effective and concentrate on the animation. Some stuff being done for stills in Terragen is just way too heavy for animation. GI is good, it adds realism to the landforms but some things like atmosphere can be more easily faked in post.