Animation?

[rcallicotte]

Once animation takes off in TG2, do you think something like this could be possible?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9cjlb_brothersisters-still-run-music-vide_music?from=feedblitz_523284_1768899

[Walli]

please keep in mind that most of those clips use heavy, heavy, heavy compositing and postwork, no one would render that directly even in the most powerful packages. Why? Because its much faster done in the comp.

[George]

I would make a clip like this with Photoshop, After Effects, Avid and with other 2D apps. The running guy would be in front of a greenscreen. In 2D it's much easier and faster to do that...

[Hetzen]

Looks completely flat paralax to me, George and Walli are right, all the elements in this are 2D, ie cut out stills, some with a little animation on them (eg the waterfall in the background). I wouldn't touch this sort of project with Terragen animation except maybe to generate a continuous plate for the background, even then I'd stitch it together in photoshop.

[rcallicotte]

Thanks everyone.  You're making sense.  I suppose TG could be used for the background images in some instances or even the ground. 

[Mohawk20]

Except for the running man and the splashes of the water, the rest is pretty easy to animate in TG2. Just a camera moving sideways, some powerfractal translations on a reflective plane for the waterfalls, and some light sources in green and yellow placed in the scene.

[scott8933]

I always advise people to do as much as possible in post, especially with particle systems (Particular, ParticleIllusion) being able to create atmospheric effects so easily. That running guy video would be, technically, relatively simple. Its more about getting a good strong initial concept.

"Stuff panning by in time to music" seems to be a recurring theme in recent years. The above video "Still Run" by Shilo, the video for "Anything You Synthesize" by Onesize (http://www.onesize.nl/projects/anything-you-synthesize) and of course the Gondry video for "Star Guitar" all come to mind.

Though the Still Run vid's production technique is pretty obvious, the Onesize and Gondry videos still impress me with their how-did-they-do-it factor. Gondry had a making-of video, where it appeared he actually just took some video out the window of a moving train (4 different videos, as I recall) and the rest was editorial trickery. Onesize also had some making-of clips and stills on their website, but nothing explained what software they were using to generate the landscapes. Great looking visuals, worth a look or two.

[Hetzen]

Thank you Scott, I hadn't seen that before (the onesize video). I think to be fair though, that there is an element of 3D still in there, especially when you look at the ground. I would guess that they have set a camera rotating around the edge of a large disk, the disk being the foreground to end of midground, with all the 3D elements like the tree/lake/pond (could be wrong here, but I think with the ground undulations this would make sense), coupled with bill board shwubewy. The background being a paralax plate. Still great video, and great concept. Reminds me of that scene in the film Nottinghill as he walks down the street through the four seasons, crap film, great sequence.

This video gives me headaches every time I watch it, brilliant piece of compositing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti4ip8zQyrc

[scott8933]

What I found humorous about the Onesize video was that they talked about first coming up with the concept, with no regard for "how are we going to pull this off". Once they had the concept and storyboards, figured out the technicalities second (or so it was implied - I did wonder how they created the boards which seemed to have very similar elements to the final).

They went into some detail about their design and conceptual process, which was very interesting.

But then left out the technical process completely! My best guess was something like Vue for matte paintings, and Maya for the 3D passes, with heavy comping on top. But just a guess, since they left it a mystery.

Designers like Onesize and "thinkers" like Gondry always make me want to just quit the business completely. Such consistently great work - I could spend a lifetime at this and never come close!

[rcallicotte]

Don't sell yourself short.  Stay diligent (not quitting) and you might find yourself in a place you never thought possible...before.

Designers like Onesize and "thinkers" like Gondry always make me want to just quit the business completely. Such consistently great work - I could spend a lifetime at this and never come close!

[scott8933]

Well, I should rephrase that: "I already have spent a lifetime at this," or at least what seems like one!

Graphic design is the only thing I know how to do, so its not like a career change is possible anyway. I figure it like this: places like MK12, Onesize, Prologue - those guys all make Fancy graphics. Me, I just make Regular graphics.

Its worked long enough for now, seems like there's room enough for both in the world.

Don't sell yourself short.  Stay diligent (not quitting) and you might find yourself in a place you never thought possible...before.