Caribbean...finally done!

[Hannes]

Holy cow! Thanks a lot! I'll have a look.

[Kadri]

I had high hope for the MSU ones but who knows 

[Hannes]

Seems that this one looks promising:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/Frame-Merger.shtml
... and it works with VD!
Thanks again, Kadri!

[Kadri]

[Hannes]

OK, here is another test rendering (with RTE on). The bump on the sails is set to 0.2 and I have to say, that the bump doesn't look as bad as I expected. Not as good as real displacement, but OK.
http://vimeo.com/13244021
The first part is edited with virtual dub and the plugin frame merger I mentioned above (once more thank you, Kadri. a lot of thank yous today, what?). The second part is edited with Combustion and frame blending. Not that much of a difference. Great idea. Thank you, Kadri!
I'll render a short sequence of the whole animation to see how everything looks like. Of course the quality is not the same like with the other settings, but each frame takes only half an hour to render. Better than 9 hours.
Before I forget it: thank you, Kadri for the great links !!!!

[Kadri]

OK, here is another test rendering (with RTE on). The bump on the sails is set to 0.2 and I have to say, that the bump doesn't look as bad as I expected. Not as good as real displacement, but OK...

I wish you (or Planetside ) could use displacement , but as you said it looks OK , Hannes 

[Oshyan]

I think the RTE/bump mapped version looks surprisingly good actually. It may be a very workable solution.

- Oshyan

[Hannes]

OK, here is another test image of a test sequence I am rendering at the moment in this size. RTE on, GI detail 1, AA 2. The ropes at the front look horrible, but that's the internal motion blur. For the stills of the storyboard I'll disable it.
Right now I have rendered 27 frames during the last days. I wanted to see how the animation looks in better quality. I am really missing the displacement on the sails because when they are backlit you don't see very much of the bump 

[Hannes]

OK, that's it. I submitted my storyboard after I made some major improvements. The translucency of the sails is correct now, the foam distribution and the animation of it are reworked and I switched off motion blur to get rid of the grainy blurred parts. I really miss the real displacement on the sails, but with RTE on I will still be alive (hopefully) if this animation will be rendered some time.
(I gave up rendering the higher resolution animation, and keep on rendering a 640X360 test animation).

I really need to do something else now, because I spent a lot of time with this animation, but it was great fun!

Here is a smaller version of my submitted storyboard:
(I forgot to mention, that I sharpened it a little bit. Otherwise there is no postwork)

[Dune]

It looks awfully good!

[gregsandor]

Very nice.  I can taste the salt air.

[domdib]

Great work!

[Henry Blewer]

I can not wait to see this animated. Watch out Lucas Film.

[Hannes]

 

[Hannes]

Here is a 100 frames animation of frames 700 to 800 with subtle frame blending and a little bit sharpening:
http://vimeo.com/13848951
Just for testing purposes I'm rendering until frame 1000. Afterwards I will render the sails with real displacement without the water and the "spray clouds" to composite it together later.