cumulus animation 720p

ndeewolfwood · August 28, 2009, 03:40:12 PM

i m testing some clouds animation...

http://www.vimeo.com/6316811

i use here the clouds setup share by luc bianco. (link in the cloud sharing section).....i tweak it to get shorter render time(but i don't have details in shadows anymore)....but i dont care i just want to find some "rules" for realistic clouds motion.

the keyframes are on :
the powerfractal warp section
coverage on the cloud layer
on a tranform node position plug after the density node.

each frame took something like 38-45 min to render on a 8 core with 16g RAM (windows xp64)...i've followed the core detection warning message : i've reduced the core detection to 4 and setup the subdiv cache to 8000. (all this part is a little bit blur for me, i have to do some research about it on the forum)

i did the render on 150 frames and timewarp it with pixel blending in After Effect. the result is a longer sequence without long render (something like 6 min to calculate "inter-frames").

more animated clouds coming soon...

Merci Seth pour tes conseils !!!

Seth · August 28, 2009, 03:42:41 PM

good job ^^
i see you'll be able to produce good stuff soon with your computer(s)

de rien

old_blaggard · August 28, 2009, 04:48:41 PM

Those are some very realistic billows; in fact, some of the best I've seen from non-physically based systems. Great work! The clouds themselves look a little too thick in my opinion, but that's something aside from the animation.

ndeewolfwood · August 28, 2009, 05:12:50 PM

good eyes old_blaggard....i've reduced the original fractal resolution from luc files to get some quick render...

ra · August 28, 2009, 05:18:23 PM

Fantastic clouds and very believable animation! Very well done!

Tangled-Universe · August 28, 2009, 05:19:17 PM

I think this is a really cool animation so far. I only have one suggestion: it is too slow.
Comparing the beginning and the end of the video not much has happened, relatively.
To keep it paced and more interesting I suggest to shift the values more quickly.
For warping, coverage and translation as well.

Martin

Seth · August 28, 2009, 05:25:16 PM

move the camera too

even just a little bit...

ndeewolfwood · August 28, 2009, 05:45:44 PM

to :Tangled-Universe
agree for the start and end thing....i think the problem come mainly from coverage animation.

i m not sure is to slow....today in Paris there is a lot of wind....i ve looked up and i m sure than my animation moves quiker than a day with a 50km/h wind.

by the way....anyone knows if there are a difference between the corevage option from the cloud layer and the one in the density shader plug to this cloud layer.

to seth : right know i prefer to move step by step....my goal is more to create some good sky animation for matte painting and sky replacement for post-production. So i want to get a perfect motion clouds setup before moving the camera.

again my goal is to create some good compositing elements...what explain why i don't move the camera because in many job a simple 2d motion works great in compositing....or i can render a bigger animation and map it into a sphere into compositing or 3d package.

...in the future i want to create a travelling with a big v height camera. for planes scene for exemple. Or a scene like the terry Gillian Brazil intro

Seth · August 28, 2009, 05:50:16 PM

hehe okidoki ^^
so you're in Paris too ?

ndeewolfwood · August 28, 2009, 06:05:52 PM

yep...if you want to drink some beers...i m your man.

Oshyan · August 31, 2009, 02:46:23 AM

Surprisingly good! Did you really set the subdiv cache to 8000??

- Oshyan

ndeewolfwood · August 31, 2009, 05:03:41 AM

yes 8000....but as i say before...i but this value without be sure of his result...

i use 8000 after Terragen says to me that my core detection setup can slowdown my render with the default subdiv cache.

Why did you look so surprised ?
What's the better value for a 8 core with 16g on 64bits system ?

Tangled-Universe · August 31, 2009, 07:19:52 AM

Quote from: ndeewolfwood on August 31, 2009, 05:03:41 AM
yes 8000....but as i say before...i but this value without be sure of his result...

i use 8000 after Terragen says to me that my core detection setup can slowdown my render with the default subdiv cache.

Why did you look so surprised ?
What's the better value for a 8 core with 16g on 64bits system ?

Since TG2 is still 32-bit there's no point to increase the subdiv-cache above a level that the total memory being used will exceed ~4GB (on a 64-bit system).
In my experience, using a large subdiv-cache can lead to bucket-errors when rendering populations. It also can cause some instability because of the above mentioned reason.

Martin

ndeewolfwood · August 31, 2009, 08:38:06 AM

I not sure.... The ram limit on xp64 is 4 g for 32 bits application...i m agree...but this number is not multiply by the core number...4g for each core ?
i'm maybe wrong...

Tangled-Universe · August 31, 2009, 11:07:59 AM

Quote from: ndeewolfwood on August 31, 2009, 08:38:06 AM
I not sure.... The ram limit on xp64 is 4 g for 32 bits application...i m agree...but this number is not multiply by the core number...4g for each core ?
i'm maybe wrong...

Yes you're...TG2 can address max 4GB in a 64-bit system. So that has to be divided over the cores, otherwise it would have been a 64-bit app if it could use 4 x 4GB/core.