Here is a small video clip real from the Mars trailer project of scenes using Terragen 2. Sorry that it is so small, I would like to post the original mov but I can't. This one looses the resolution and a lot of the detail but I think you can still get the idea ;). Just so you know the, the vehicles are postworked in from 3ds Max.
(http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff302/nvseal/th_terragen2_scenes_unexpected.jpg) (http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff302/nvseal/?action=view¤t=terragen2_scenes_unexpected.flv)
SWEET
Excellent, doing it for a demo reel?
wow...very nice...short, but sweeet!!
I wanna see more!!!! AMAZING
Brilliant work, def want to see more :) How did you do the camera anim? A tutorial would be sweet?
Richard
Thanks. I should have been more specific about my "involvement." I made all the TG 2 scenes to the desires of the team in Germany. Then they decided on the camera angles and rendered the animations on their render farm. They also built the vehicles and did the postwork. So cyphyr, I can't really tell you how to do the camera animation (I don't have the animation version). I do know that there was forum topic here that was used to help output the camera animation from 3ds max and import into TG 2.
That's just wicked!
It rocks!
Very nice work! If it's a matter of hosting space, we could host a larger version of it over at Ashundar.
Beautiful. This is some fine work, your stills(although also fantastic) don't do the scene justice. This is just great looking in all its glory!
Great gig!
Really enjoyed the short scene. I wish the video quality was higher, but anyway, well done. If I were Planetside I'd make it a news item on the hompage, pointing it our as an example as to how realistic and fascinating TG2-based scenes can be in a production environment ;-)
8) Thumbs up! 8)
Hey old_baggard, that would be great. Where can I upload it?
You'll need an account at Ashundar, and then just upload it here: http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=0.
You can upload anything up to 100MB, but wrap it in a .zip file for uploading. Once it's on the server I can set it up in a more sensible format.
You can also upload to www.veoh.com for better quality.
Here it is on Ashundar: http://www.ashundar.com/terragen2_scenes_unexpected.mov
I have to say that it looks incredible at this higher resolution.
Is it missing some frames? The vehicle moves like it's acting under Jupiter gravity, not Martian. Or are the Martians very, very small? :)
No, it´s not missing some frames, it´s intended like this.
The Terragen2-3dsmax-connection was established with the TG2-Max-Script from Emecstudios - http://emecstudios.be/index.php/plugins/planetside-software-terragen-2.html .
Big thanks to Davy Beunckens for writing this plugin and helping me out with troubleshooting creating the scenes.
And yeah, big thanks to "nvseal" of course for creating these landscapes for us for this trailer project. There will be more shots to come!
cheers,
Steffen
www.unexpected.de
Thanks Steffen. Looking forward to seeing more!
Matt
Quote from: SteveScout on October 22, 2008, 02:21:26 AM
No, it´s not missing some frames, it´s intended like this.
The Terragen2-3dsmax-connection was established with the TG2-Max-Script from Emecstudios - http://emecstudios.be/index.php/plugins/planetside-software-terragen-2.html .
Big thanks to Davy Beunckens for writing this plugin and helping me out with troubleshooting creating the scenes.
And yeah, big thanks to "nvseal" of course for creating these landscapes for us for this trailer project. There will be more shots to come!
cheers,
Steffen
www.unexpected.de
Damn that looks like an awesome plugin, wish some genius would write one for Lightwave ...
Richard
Holy hell that looks good! I love the rock monolith in the 3rd scene. Great work all involved. :)
- Oshyan
Now that's nice! ;D
I wonder how long this took to render ??? Seems a lot is possible with TG2... I'm looking forward to see more of this. It's all so fast, I have to watch it in slo-mo sometime ;)
question from novice:
animations in TG2 are like in T0.9? is it necessary to render each frame?
my computer works 4 hours for each image..... :-\
QX9650 3GHz, 8GB ram ddr3 1333MHz 6.6.6.18, 1TB Raid0, XP x64 Professional.
which computer you have?
How long has worked your computer?
sorry if you do not understand what I write
Animating in TG2 is very different to set up, but you still render each frame one at a time. However, since you have a quad core processor, TG2 will take advantage of it and speed up render times.
Quote from: tagan on October 23, 2008, 11:58:54 AM
which computer you have?
While I cannot comment on the length of the render time I can tell you that these animations were rendered on a render farm.
Hi!
Okay, as for the render times - we experimented a little bit. The last shot in the sequence, with the gliders and the explosion in the hill, was rendered straight in TG2 with Motion Blur (0.3) in 1280x720. Render times were about 6 hours per frame.
We installed the maximum numbers of render licenses allowed with on TG2 Deep Animation, so the sequence took a few days on the render nodes and my own machine. I started two instances on my machine to use two processors for each running TG2-instance. For the future I´d wish unlimited render licenses (because the TG2 render times are just pure horror, so the drawback could be minimized a little bit for renderfarm-owners) and the availability to hook it up to real render distribution systems, like Autodesks Backburner for example.
For the shot with the car on the marsian surface we tested another approach. We rendered the sequence WITHOUT motion blur (2 hours max per frame), in the end rendered a detailed Micro LWO export from a high camera and loaded this geometry into 3dsmax. After a little rework on all the existing gaps this surface could be used to get a camera WSM projection from the main camera with the rendered TG2 sequence, the texture set to "mirro" instead of "tiling". So the edges, where motion blur appeared without a existing TG2 image, could be "faked". And then everything was rendered with Vray Motion Blur - saved a lot of time, but does not work with all landscapes, rather with planar ones like this. And of course not with all camera moves.
These were our two approaches and for upcoming shots now we know which one to choose to get the result as fast as possible.
cheers,
Steffen
I've always felt that TG's motion blur was too slow to warrant the extra render time. Time wise it would still be quicker to render images bigger than you need, apply motion blur in your compositor package and crop out the edges where the motion blur don't quite make the grade.
Whats WSM projection?
Maybe its because I've not tried this with anything too complex (no overhangs, stones etc) but I'd use an orthographic camera placed above the centre of the scene to create the lwo micro export, no holes that way.
Richard
very nice great job :o :o :o
Quote from: cyphyr on October 24, 2008, 08:36:41 AM
Maybe its because I've not tried this with anything too complex (no overhangs, stones etc) but I'd use an orthographic camera placed above the centre of the scene to create the lwo micro export, no holes that way.
Richard
I got a lot of holes trying that on a terrain with no overhangs... all these missing polygons, very frustrating...
Don't know why on earth (or Mars) it took me so long to find this thread. This is spectacular stuff, yet unsurprising knowing where this is coming from - I just loved those Snicker ads! You guys are the dog's bollock!
@bertrand: I suppose one can find those snicker-ads on Youtube, could you link there? I am really curious ;D
Quote from: MacGyver on October 29, 2008, 05:25:44 AM
@bertrand: I suppose one can find those snicker-ads on Youtube, could you link there? I am really curious ;D
You can also find them on the unexpected home page www.unexpected.de.
Thank you! :D
Oh, by the way, where do I have to look for it? Doesn't say "Ad" anywhere :P
Looks under visual effects.
Thank you!
I almost suffered a heart attack watching them, dude they rock! ;D
Hi!
@cyphyr: WSM projection in 3dsmax is a camera mapping modifier that updates the projected texture every frame - so the rendered TG2 image sequence can be projected onto the surface (imported from TG2) through the main camera that has been used to render the TG2 sequence as well. The motion blur seams in the picture´s edges can be avoided by mirroring the texture´s tiling settings with a 0.5 value. This way one should be able to ever render overhangs and complex structres and apply the motion blur later in the 3d package - of course the imported geometry will take a lot of memory, but hey, it´s less slow than rendering everything with high mblur settings in TG2 or re-rendering if the outpu was somehow not what one had in mind.
We´re rendering one more sequence at the moment ... I´d like not to put any motion blur on it .. these millions of nice rocks and stones .. so levely .. *sigh*
cheers,
Steffen
oh .. and before I forget: A brand new Snickers Spot is online on our website www.unexpected.de - and all CG/action lovers will be happy with it! For the tech geeks .. there´s still the Making Of! ;)
Steffen
This is very impressive.
I like the blooper at the end of the 'making of' :D