The road

[Grosch]

Hey,

i'll join the contest after some test renders

I found a picture I've done in sweden last summer. It shows a road at night. And i thought: What kind of story can I tell with an animation about this road ? A road brings people thogether. If you want to visit a concert, the supermarket or your grandparents...you use the road to achive your purpose. The animation will show the way of a hard working man from the big city back to his family. To a calm place near a lake. During his journey he drives through amazing (terragen)landscape 

I scribbled 5/6 shots of the story to a sheet of paper and made some test renders. I'm unsure about the 5th shot...we will see

Short description of the shots:
1. establishing shot: a total view where you can see the big city in the valley and the mountains in the foreground
2. the road through the mountains
3. A top view to the road
4. A close view of the road (like inspiration-photo)
5.
6. house near the lake

I think i'll get some problems with this scene.  Free version is limited to 3 population layer. I don't know if it's enough for all scenes. The biggest problem will be time . 1week/scene is very hard. I'm no TG2 professional but I think you'll help  . That's all for today.

Grosch

[Rudolfking]

Hi,
Great idea! But I think TG has some problems with objects in foreground (I mean buildings...), so it's a bit hard to do well.
And don't forget (if I'm not mistaken), the WHOLE city, forest, hill, house, lake must be ONE scene because of the animation
Maybe it's a trick but not forbidden, that you use more populations to render the different POV-s (but only 3 of the populations will remain checked for each render, for example in the city the grass, near the lake the weed or bushes etc.)
I have the same problem (3 pops are not too much, if I can't use post-processing (stitch different renders with different 3 pops)).
The fifth image: The first turn after you see the house? Some forest, and the house is present, but still far?

[Grosch]

Hi,
But I think TG has some problems with objects in foreground (I mean buildings...), so it's a bit hard to do well.
And don't forget (if I'm not mistaken), the WHOLE city, forest, hill, house, lake must be ONE scene because of the animation
Maybe it's a trick but not forbidden, that you use more populations to render the different POV-s (but only 3 of the populations will remain checked for each render, for example in the city the grass, near the lake the weed or bushes etc.)
I have the same problem (3 pops are not too much, if I can't use post-processing (stitch different renders with different 3 pops)).
The fifth image: The first turn after you see the house? Some forest, and the house is present, but still far?

I made a little house dummy (night/day) and I think it looks ok. I'll be not so close at the end.
Thanks for the trick with the population

I developed the first scene a little bit to become an feeling for it. I added 2 heightfields and the city and found an intresting POV.  I've some problems with the texture of the city but this will be solved. 

Grosch

[domdib]

Nice lighting in the house. This is shaping up to be quite intriguing.

[FrankB]

wow, you have put a lot of thought into this concept it seems. And it is a challenging scene, but not impossible.
By the way, we don't have to animate a completly continuous camera path. It's ok to have a cut scene, as long as it's apparent that it still shows a part of the same scene. So you could glide along the road for a while, and then switch to a birds-eye view higher above the road, and fly round that mountain for example, or turn the camera from the city towards the mountain.
These are details we can discuss after the winning storyboard has been chosen. Just concentrate on the 6 waypoint shots for now.
Also, if memory is a problem (e.g. if you have a 32bit OS), we can increase the tree density for the animation to use the full 4GB that would be available on a 64bit OS.

Lastly, I would like to say that I really like the night scene that you have there.

Regards,
Frank

[rcallicotte]

I like your inspiration and like that you have put so much thought and TG2 effort into this already.  Remember to keep things visible to the viewer - what you as the creator sees might not matter when moving at 24FPS.

[Hannes]

Hey, an old veteran from the german TG-forum! Can't wait to see your entry finished. The inspiration looks great. Come on, buy the full version, so you don't have to struggle with all those limitations. It's worth it!