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General => Image Sharing => Topic started by: narvik on November 25, 2008, 09:16:49 AM

Title: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on November 25, 2008, 09:16:49 AM
Here's an animation I'm working on (with HEAVY help from old_blaggard).

It's an excerpt from a longer fly-over.

To be included in a documentary film about Pitcairn Island.

Currently still rendering final image sequence. Total rendering time about ~4500 hrs.

http://fjordland.com/test5.mov

(~3mb)
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: nvseal on November 25, 2008, 10:12:24 AM
I'm loving the camera movement. Very nice looking stuff indeed.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: cyphyr on November 25, 2008, 10:14:51 AM
Very Impressive indeed, love the camera movement and the ship wake too. How long is the final going to be, c'mon details please ;)
richard
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: chaps on November 25, 2008, 12:09:49 PM
Really nice, it is a shame that I got some scratches on my LCD.  ;D

Pascal.

Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on November 25, 2008, 12:15:30 PM
Thanks for the comments.

Animation is 1560 frames total. Although originally planned for 25 fps (it's a PAL widescreen project, frame size is 1050x576), I am thinking of slowing it down by about 20%.

Test footage uploaded is slowed down. Final decision will be determined how it plays out with the narration. It will probably clock in at 45 to 55 seconds in the end is my guess.

Each frame is taking about 3 hours 14 minutes to render; with each frame having huge tree populations (although I could of removed some populations where there is no island visible of course, but final animation sequence is just running without taking that into consideration on two computers.)

Like I mentioned though, old_blaggard is the main one responsible for making this; I did the flyover in Campath in v0.9.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: MacGyver on November 25, 2008, 12:50:15 PM
This is really great! :)
Can you give some details about the documentary? I remember to have talked about it in religious education, though I'm not quite sure what the reason was. At least 6 years have passed since then and my brain is like a sieve ;)
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Insquall on November 25, 2008, 03:03:56 PM
Well its very good apart from the attempt to make it look like old film. The white specks seem quite forced and kind of detract from the animation. Colour film has a different sort of noise quality. (and people who can afford to fly helicopters usually have better quality film).
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on November 26, 2008, 04:36:33 AM
Quote from: Insquall on November 25, 2008, 03:03:56 PM
Well its very good apart from the attempt to make it look like old film. The white specks seem quite forced and kind of detract from the animation. Colour film has a different sort of noise quality. (and people who can afford to fly helicopters usually have better quality film).

Hehe, good comment, really.

There's some post processing done to the movie, and currently the "film look" is done with the crappy built-in plug-in of VEGAS Pro.
The final version has this look done in After Effects, and much more subtle too. Just a hint of grain, just a hint of dust, just a hint of flicker.

Uploaded version is half-resolution.

So, you and I think alike! :)
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on November 26, 2008, 08:01:48 AM
Quote from: MacGyver on November 25, 2008, 12:50:15 PM
This is really great! :)
Can you give some details about the documentary? I remember to have talked about it in religious education...

Thanks.
Here's a link: http://pitcairnstory.com

Your education might of been in regards to Pitcairners' long history of being predominantly Seventh Day Adventists.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: rcallicotte on November 26, 2008, 02:53:53 PM
4500 hours!!!  Unbelievable.  This looks very nice, though.  Cool music.  And what's this movie going to be about?   ;D
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: old_blaggard on November 26, 2008, 04:01:18 PM
It's good to see this finally coming together! Narvik and I have been working on this since 2007, trying to get things exactly right. Glad you guys like it :).
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Marcos Silveira on November 28, 2008, 05:40:51 AM
Ok, let's see if I understood: 1560 frames x 3 hours/frame = 4680 hours = 195 days = 6,5 months of uninterrupted render?!?!?!?

am I right???
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on November 28, 2008, 06:26:08 AM
Quote
6,5 months of uninterrupted render?

Yes, except that it's rendering on more than one computer.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Marcos Silveira on November 28, 2008, 09:51:02 AM
Oh, Got It.  ;)
So... total render time???
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on February 16, 2009, 09:45:18 PM
Animation [almost] complete:

http://fjordland.com/PN_flyby_2009.mov
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: RArcher on February 16, 2009, 09:58:51 PM
Very impressive.  You have obviously put a tremendous amount of effort into this.  It is probably far to late to change now but just looking at a few photo's of the island it looks like you could use a lot more trees on the island and the cliff faces could use some additional displacement and colouring.  I'm not sure if it is intentional or not but when the camera is chasing the boat there are a few rough spots where the camera jerks around a little bit.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on February 16, 2009, 11:40:22 PM
Thanks RArcher,
for the input.

Yeah, the "jerkiness" is actually a result of an error in the script and semi-cleverly being disguised as camera motion shake with an additional 'shaky' filter.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Alf15000 on February 17, 2009, 01:28:28 AM
Very nice ! I can see that water is a little "static", but you made a great work  ;)
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Oshyan on February 17, 2009, 02:45:53 AM
The main thing I noticed is an apparent lack of motion blur. I think adding that in would bump up realism quite a bit. Unfortunately it's too late to re-render now of course. There are also some evident rendering errors (terrain and shadow popping, cut-off displacement) that would hopefully turn out better in the final release, with some of the additional settings and fixes that have been added.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: mt_sabao on February 17, 2009, 04:23:42 AM
yes impressive, but i was also going to point out the lack of motion blur. specially the initial frames. too bad the shadow popping. great work other wise, really like the camera motion!
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: MacGyver on February 17, 2009, 04:43:31 AM
Very good animation! Which version of TG2 did you use? How long was rendering time? (last time it was already 4500h?)
It's a pity that there are rendering errors in it... anyway, it turned out really nice! :)
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Mohawk20 on February 17, 2009, 11:31:37 AM
Looks great...
I would recommend to desaturate a little in post, so it looks a bit older (which would fit the vertical lines of the 'film effect' better).
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: narvik on February 17, 2009, 03:40:21 PM
Thanks for all replies.

Motion blur:
oops, I did forget to add that. Was always meant to be added in post, but I forgot.

Rendering errors:
Yes, there's a few. We struggled with them throughout. Oshyan you mention that these might be fixed in a final version?
So the new software addresses those issues? That would be cool!

I'm still considering adding a bird flying around (mainly to hide some errors).
But I may just leave it as is, with the exception of adding motion blur.

Render time was long: there's something like 1560 frames, rendered at 1024x576 resolution, and each taking between two and three hours.
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: Oshyan on February 18, 2009, 12:02:02 AM
Some of the issues may be fixed, yes. Each instance would have to be tested to be sure.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Tropical island animation (excerpt from animation)
Post by: efflux on February 21, 2009, 10:07:33 AM
Impressive. Motion blur would definitely have been beneficial especially at the start. Toning down the colours might be a good idea to fit with the old look. Yes, the island could be a bit more realistic - cliff faces etc but the whole thing is a lot of work and results are good.