Small Canyon/Cave Animation

RArcher · August 07, 2008, 11:15:34 AM

Working on a little animation now that I have a faster computer. Here is the first camera movement test through a canyon and cave. The GI flickering issues from past TG versions seems to be improved when you increase the GI blur radius values, but I'm not sure how high I will have to go to get rid of the flickering completely.

This is a 20 second, 300 frame test at 320 x180 (the final will probably be 720 x 400)

It took around 35 hours at:

Detail: 0.7
AA: 3
GI 2/2
GI Blur Radius: 24
Supersample prepass on

Any comments and suggestions appreciated.

http://www.archer-designs.com/temp/canyon-cave-animation/canyon-cave-320x180-xvid.avi

Tangled-Universe · August 07, 2008, 11:28:48 AM

Nice work Ryan! Good transition from canyon to cave and also good displacements.
If you're interested in some more heavy displaced and stratified canyons I can offer you one of my tgd's from my canyon images...though they would probably take longer to render

Martin

RArcher · August 07, 2008, 11:41:18 AM

That is one of the major issues I have run into so far. I started with a beautifully detailed scene with excellent small scale details and about 6 layers of various strata with a dozen or so powerfractals combined with a bunch of reflective shaders and billowing fog patches. Unfortunately at 720 x 400 with 0.5 detail each frame was taking about 4-5 hours to render.

I hope to have the final animation around 1000 frames long so that one would have taken around 175 days or so. For just a simple test, that just isn't going to happen! I've been slowly scaling back the detail and complexity until I get a result at 720 x 400 0.7 detail in around 30 minutes per frame that I am happy with.

That being said, I would definitely like to check out your canyon .tgd as you may have a better process that increases the detail but keeps render times lower than what I usually come up with.

Tangled-Universe · August 07, 2008, 12:22:37 PM

Well, I don't think mine will be faster or less complex when I look at your strategy.
I'll dig up your mailaddress and send it to you.

Martin

rcallicotte · August 07, 2008, 12:25:31 PM

Good job, Ryan!

Oshyan · August 12, 2008, 02:20:46 AM

Looks very nice. Try blur radius values in the 100's. 100, 150, 200, or 300 perhaps. Higher than that shouldn't be necessary, but in that range should work.

- Oshyan

FrankB · August 12, 2008, 02:47:16 AM

looks very nice. I like the scenery very much. However, I thought it may be good if inside the cave it would be darker. at least initially, until our eyes would have adjusted.
You could turn the exposure down upon entrance into the cave, and then gradually increase it back up again.

Regards,
Frank

Tangled-Universe · August 12, 2008, 04:37:28 AM

Quote from: FrankB on August 12, 2008, 02:47:16 AM
looks very nice. I like the scenery very much. However, I thought it may be good if inside the cave it would be darker. at least initially, until our eyes would have adjusted.
You could turn the exposure down upon entrance into the cave, and then gradually increase it back up again.

Regards,
Frank

Good suggestion Frank.

Ryan, did you have any luck already with my file?

Martin

RArcher · August 12, 2008, 09:44:28 AM

That is a very interesting suggestions Frank! I will see what I can do about that. Thanks for the guidelines for the blur radius Oshyan, I wasn't noticing much of a difference between the default 8 and 24, 32 etc. Sometimes with the sliders you really have no idea what sort of range you should be going to.

I have made quite a few major changes so far, some based upon studying Martin's canyon wall file, and others for the sake of render times. Here is a higher res image (currently frame 77) The walls have been reworked, and unfortunately for now anyway the water is gone. At 0.5 detail, 16AA, 3/3 GI at 720x400 this one took 28 minutes to render, so I am close but not quite where I would like to be for the full animation.

Tangled-Universe · August 14, 2008, 09:58:47 AM

Cool frame Ryan!

Can't wait to see the animation. Somehow an image really comes to life when it is being animated and I think this is the case.
Are you going to add some variations to the camera movement as well? I'd like to see that the camera here and then rotates a bit to the left or right while still going through the canyon. Like sitting on a boat and keeping your focus on a certain spot for some seconds. See what I mean?

Martin