Impressive VFX spot

[TheBadger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_a4DTesVew

I like the shots of petersburg a lot.

[Dune]

Holy mackerel! Incredible footage.

[TheBadger]

I think it is nearly all 3D?

[TheBadger]

 

[Kadri]

I doubt it Michael.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj1l2GxtOHc

In French.

Edit: Found the original site.There are subtitles too:
        http://www.odyssee.cartier.us/#/home

[Dune]

Still incredibly well done. Costly too, no wonder this blingbling is so expensive.

[TheBadger]

Well at least Saint petersburg is 3D!
[attach=1]

I would like to see more about how people make these fake cities. I was in St Petersburg for a while, and would swear that the scene in the video is not real. I showed it to my wife who has been there many times and she was sure there is no area like whats in the video too.

Do you guys have any links to any, kinda instructional material about creating a sweeping city view? something like this perhaps, but with more instruction?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGA73iBDLMA

And also your thought about placing the city scene in TG directly as models.
[attach=2]

[Kadri]

I posted this in Facebook but not here it seems Michael ?
http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/stalingrad

Richard posted this :
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16757.msg163499.html#msg163499

[Kadri]

Michael that scene above you mention might be made in 3D; i don't know. But it doesn't have to.
That green screen can be used for matte painting too.
There is very little parallax and what is shown can be made in AfterFX with pictures-mattepainting too if needed.

[TheBadger]

Yes.

I did see that stuff about the hindu scene. I liked it but forgot I had seen it.

But what are your thoughts about doing this stuff inTG in 3D, as opposed to matte paintings? I think there are a few images around here that have cities in them in one form or another. But not a lot to have a very good feel of whats really possible and whats pushing the envelope.

Im working on a number of tries at this. Im modeling greek roman stuff for a sort of "small" scene. And Im working on collecting a number of resources for a big, kind of sweeping metro scene, and something else too.

But Iv a long way to go in just acquiring the assets I need for each endeavor. I did get the idea to "reuse" models and parts of models from that hindu scene Richard posted. And that has helped to cut down the work load for modeling the greek roman stuff.

But I would still like to see and hear more on this general subject. I bring it up a lot lately in a number of contexts. Would be nice to see renders made in TG that maybe people have had and just not shared, where a city is prominent.

I can think of Ulco's scenes, and there are one or two in the official image gallery (or there had been). But If there are more please let me know.

[Kadri]

Always deeps questions Michael

Here are professional users who could give you much more inside about the death-line based art side of these things.

If you ask me it depends on what you want to archive.
Will you only make a nice-great looking video to show what you are able to do in the programs you use ;
then make it hard as it gets and some way you will find a the job you want (if it is for a demo).
But if you want only a nice-great looking video to tell a story then what does it matter what software or 3D -2D you used to make it ?
Make it in the fastest and easiest way  without scarifying the vision you have.
If TG3 is a part of it use it. I can not give more specific answers without knowing what you want to do (in detail).
The scene above is a good example actually.
Does it matter if it is 2D or 3D beside us speaking about it?
It looks nice.

I for one will use TG3 wherever i can.
If it takes too long and another software is faster without much a different look i will use the other one of course.
There are others that use TG3 with objects very nicely for example but i still like using Lightwave in that regard.
So i would use comping probably TG3 with Lightwave.
I would make the city in Lightwave and would comp it or would use TG3 rendered backgrounds etc.

You remind me the way i thought 20 years ago.
I wanted to make this and that and this...but the computer took hours to render and could not handle all i trow at it.
I still do this sometimes today. I made a tree to test how to use 3Dcoat, lightwave, TG3
and a free Lightwave plugin (http://dpont.pagesperso-orange.fr/plugins/Verdure/DP_Tree_Manual.htm )
and i crashed all of those programs constantly in the last 2-3 days.
I have 32 GB Ram but i saw more then ones out of memory kinda problems.
One tree was nearly 2 GB and no program could open it after i saved it etc.
I still try to make scenes that that have everything in one place .
These are mostly Terragen scenes. But mostly for fun if i can make them in Terragen or not.
But if you want to do this as your job that is a different thing of course .

For example first make a basic animatic Michael .
Do you have one? Or a storyboard Michael?
Then you can see better how you should approach this probably .
As i wrote below i don't remember cities scenes made with Terragen.
Others will help you more probably about this.

[Kadri]

I don't remember much with Terragen .
This came to my mind. There could be some good technique in it.
http://www.oddballanimation.com/archives/1614
http://www.oddballanimation.com/

[TheBadger]

Believe it or not Kadri, those last links are very helpful indeed! Having seen RUIN, I know what the final quality was. And seeing how he organized his assets is very helpful.

They are all UV mapped to 150 single polygons for use in background shots

Now see this is where I have gotten messed up.

He knows that he cant have everything in a huge scene taking up tons of data space. And he knows that he wont get close to most of the models anyway. So he makes them only as good as they need to be. Everything is pre-planed, every shot.

But I, like to build up a scene thats as real as possible and then decide where I want a camera. Like scouting a real location, and then shooting there. Terragen is partly to blame for this because it has allowed me to do things most other software would not. For example, I could populate a high polly city in TG, with hundreds of buildings and then choose what I want to do in that city with my camera. MAya would drop dead after it shit its self.

You already touched on this Kadri, when you asked about my pre-visualization workflow. The answer to your question is, it depends. When I work in After Effects and Maya, I tend to plan more before starting. But with TG not so much. Or rather, I do plan, but I think in bigger terms with TG.

So for example, In TG I would not worry about the building being low polly until they were (I don't know) say 5 miles from where I know my camera will be. Just because I know I can have millions of polygons anyway.

^^ thats one reason I have been so loud about letting me do more in TG, that you would normally use a package like  Maya for. Because I don't have to worry *so much* about my assets being to big/high polly.

Ideally, I would like a full world like TG to work in, with all the abilities of Maya, and none of the shitting and dying that comes with High polly and maya scenes. But I think it will never happen. So your links are very helpful to me.

Thank Man!

[Kadri]

Yeah Matt is guilty too really
Where others crash mostly TG3 takes only long to load big objects and textures.
The first time i tried a big object,textures i thought Terragen crashed.
I actually terminated it in the task manager.
Later i decided to wait and see. It could handle mostly all i trowed at it.
The only thing Matt forget to put is probably a smiley that says "wait i am still loading".
OK! Not that!
But a bar like progress would be good probably.
They show not always in what percentage really the progress is , but they are good for prohibiting uncertainty.

[youbache]

wow really impressive !!