Short 10 sec Animation ~ Dark Skies

[cyphyr]

With the density so low I was able to set the quality quite high (3) and still have respectable render times (aprox 12min).

Richard

[Oshyan]

Looks good! Interesting sparkle on the ground in the 2nd half. With render times that comparatively low, why not a 720p version?

- Oshyan

[MacGyver]

This version looks rather dark, is this due to the increased cloud density? And I too see that sparkle on the stones which irritated me a bit. Are they supposed to be wet? Otherwise the render time and the quality is very good and you're right, there's no more flickering anywhere so this could be ready to go. I wonder where you're going with that scene? What do you have in mind as the final result?

[Oshyan]

I downloaded the full "Quicktime" version of the video (RLE encoded apparently) and re-encoded it to h.264 (AVC). It's only about 7MB now and very high quality. A lot nicer than the Vimeo one for some reason (though usually vids there are pretty high quality).

Anyway, I do see some popping of terrain elements and fake stones. Are you using Detail Blending, Microvertex and Detail Jitter?

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Hi Oshian
I just used the defaults for my QT anim, maybe it would be worth while using a different codec
Detail blending is set to "0" and Micro vertex and detail jittering are both "ticked".
The high spec on the stones was a mistake, it don't work too well and is quite distraction to the rest of the scene.
For the next stage I need to build some models (once my house guest gives me the time ) and create a longer camera path.
Thanks for the feedback
Richard

[inkydigit]

nice Job Richard!

[Henry Blewer]

I book marked the page. I think I might download a couple and run them through Blender to recode them. I am sure DIVX will play much smoother. Besides, it will drive me to get the animation package. It should be fun to render 900 frames of animation on a P4.

[Oshyan]

I'd suggest turning up Detail Blending to 1 for animations. Turning off the specular on stones will probably drop render time a bit too.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Ok, I tried rendering with detail blending set to 1, it tripled the render time from 7 min to 22 min (I have got rid of the spec on the stones). The result is slightly visible, really I'll have to render at least a seconds worth to see how it changes animation quality.

... With render times that comparatively low, why not a 720p version?

- Oshyan

What are the settings for "720p"? At the moment each frame is 720px x 412px but I don't understand video settings at all, lol



Richard

[Kadri]

http://www.equasys.de/standardresolution.html

Of course there are many more sites you can find about this  

Cheers.

Kadri.

[Oshyan]

Triple, really? That's a bit of a surprise. But I did see some popping and whatnot in your original video that it could resolve. If you'd like I can point out a specific timeframe where the problems occur and you could test those frames to see if it helps.

720p video is 1280x720.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Update:
Modeled a ship, still some work there I think
Now rendered at 720p in 20min+/-, not too bad I think as far as time is concerned.
More modeling and still the cam path to sort out One thing at this size, I'm wanting to add more details in, lol 

Richard

[Henry Blewer]

Richard, the ship is cool looking. It would be awesome with some more color. Nice work, but then I have enjoyed all of your images. I recoded and sharpened your anim here. It is really impressive. Looks so much better at full screen size.