Hi everyone,
My name is PcXT. I am a music producer based in Paris and I discovered Terragen a few month ago as I was looking for a way to create video clips for my music.
First of all, I'd like to thank you all, developers and users, for the amazing content found on the forum. You have been very helpful and I would still be stucked without the info you're all sharing.
After many hours of work and documentation reading, I'm able to release my first clip today. I gave myself a challenge : releasing a musical track with its videoclip every week for one year.
I thought It would be interesting to show you the results. You will certainly find a lot to say, positive and negative : feel free, I love feedback !
I just have to say that I'm CPU-Power limited. As each clip is a set of ca.4600 frames, I had to make sacrifices : low resolution (800x450), no clouds, no populations... I may upgrade during the process but for now I've decided that the result is satisfying.
Here's the link of the 1st clip :
https://youtu.be/AgKiHiAG7gE
If you don't find me spammy with the project I'll be glad to share my next clips here. And above all I hope you'll enjoy the music for itself !
Thanks again everyone, I hope you'll like it !
Welcome to the forum and what an entry. Love the way you synchronized the animation with your music. Very cool.
Thanks, Dune ! Glad you liked it !
Great ... and welcome!
Thanks !
Welcome indeed and quite the entry...love the syncing of music to motion...can't wait till you upgrade your system and really get into this. You do know there are render farms you could hire to do the 'heavy lifting' when it comes to rendering..would love to see your interactions with clouds and maybe flying through forests etc. Keep up the great work and as these are in fact images this is the correct forum to post in.
Cool music by the way, do you need more? Some of us here write music as well....
Cool project! For future weeks, try the "Animation Check" button on the Sequence/Output tab. You may find this reduces the popping surfaces you see when the camera moves. I look forward to seeing and hearing more.
Thanks bobbystahr, thanx Matt ! Cool you like it !
I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the upgrade a bit, as I've already a dozen of clips rendered... But don't worry I've tried to make as much variety as I could.
Yeah I heard about render farms. What I've seen is too expensive for me, but if you have any cool address why not. I plan to have 52 clips though...
Thanx for the tip Matt. That's what I do now, although I don"t really know what the button does.
I don't really "need" more music, since the images are supporting the music I make and not the other way round. But if some of the musicians here want to collaborate, it would be with pleasure !
Quote from: PcXT on April 02, 2019, 03:01:04 AM
I don't really "need" more music, since the images are supporting the music I make and not the other way round. But if some of the musicians here want to collaborate, it would be with pleasure !
I sort of thought the music was in fact driving the animation...well done on that. Collaboration sounds like an idea for the future...keep me in mind if you come to that point. I play and write as my first
art mistress and graphics has long been my therapy for when music isn't working but I love both equally in my old age of retirement heh heh.
PixelPlow is about as affordable as render farms get, and if you're not in a hurry you can just use the lowest priority for extremely affordable pricing. Especially if you are using somewhat lower detail and complexity as-in this case. One thing to think about would be to *not* actually make the scenes much more complex (e.g. avoid clouds if possible, or use simple and v2 clouds), but use the extra render farm resources to just increase quality so you have higher quality results. The terrain in your current video suffers a bit from the low detail (aside from just the popping that Matt mentioned).
- Oshyan
Welcome to the forums
QuoteI sort of thought the music was in fact driving the animation...
Well, exactly ! It's a musical project, I start by composing the track. Only then I choose a planet from the ones I've made and start editing the video according to the music.
QuoteCollaboration sounds like an idea for the future...
Do you have a soundcloud or a website to have a listen ?
Thank you DannyG and Oshyan. Yes, PixelPlow seems worth trying. As I'm watching all your awesome pictures I realize how much my renders could be better. I've about 15 rendered landscapes already, so it's food for thoughts for the future... (I also suspect that Youtube adds compression and wipes away some details.)
I hope I won't shock you with the next video, in which I've deliberately chosen a low-poly setting. I like the sort of "vintage computer" feeling that occurs then, even if it's using 1% of TG capabilities and in the end may be not fair to the software...
Quote from: PcXT on April 03, 2019, 02:13:42 AM
QuoteI sort of thought the music was in fact driving the animation...
Well, exactly ! It's a musical project, I start by composing the track. Only then I choose a planet from the ones I've made and start editing the video according to the music.
QuoteCollaboration sounds like an idea for the future...
Do you have a soundcloud or a website to have a listen ?
here's a page but the computer tests are the last few after the numbered songs which is actually me playing and singing my solo cd.
Feel free to edit these first few computer made tunes at will by the way...be interested to hear what you come up with. These are from when I first got Melody Assistant and was teaching myself how to write on a staff instead of just my guitar.
https://soundcloud.com/bobbystahr
Thanks man, I'll check that out this Weekend. Very generous from you !
Quote from: PcXT on April 04, 2019, 02:26:15 PM
Thanks man, I'll check that out this Weekend. Very generous from you !
No problem at all....I get the music free in my heart and brain...just happens; so I am compelled by my original hippy ethic, to share heh heh.
Hey Folks,
Here's Video #2, week 2 of my insane project.
Lo-poly is on purpose.
Flicker is an accident but i like it. I've learn the GI rendering file since and I use it sometimes...
Poor antialiasing is my mistake. It was too late to go back, I hope you'll forgive me !
Youtube is definitely washing out some details. I'll have to find a solution for that...
So, here it is. Comments, feedback and criticism welcome of course !
https://youtu.be/j5M2WMGkico
Hah, used this way the flickering and low detail actually work. Cool!
We had a lot of trouble with YouTube and our latest video, Hannes' tornado. YT was compressing the hell out of it. One fix was to upsample in post and then upload a 4k version to YT. The other option was to use Vimeo, which preserved the quality much better.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on April 07, 2019, 11:26:41 PM
Hah, used this way the flickering and low detail actually work. Cool!
We had a lot of trouble with YouTube and our latest video, Hannes' tornado. YT was compressing the hell out of it. One fix was to upsample in post and then upload a 4k version to YT. The other option was to use Vimeo, which preserved the quality much better.
- Oshyan
vimeo would be my choice for art for sure...good people there.
Hey, cool you like it !
Indeed it's the kind of situation where it has to be either top quality, either Lo fi on purpose. The inbetween here didn't work. It's nice to have a positive feedback because people around me were not convinced by the lo poly thing !
Yeah Vimeo is way better. I may switch. On the other hand YouTube is a better place to be seen for a musician. I think i'll try to oversample, thanks for the tip !
Hello boys and girls.
Here's the 3rd clip :
https://youtu.be/iCVaWoIXkLY
I really like this one. Comments welcome as usual :)
#4.
Tell me if i start being boring :)
https://youtu.be/pMX9y9yxR7o
Welcome to the forum and what a cracking start! Loved the music (thought you might be Jean Michelle-Jarre). Animations are great with the music following the terrain - very compelling!
Thanks Jonathan !
Very pleased that you like the music ! I'm not JMJarre, I take it as a compliment ;)
Next video will be out tomorrow...
Hi everybody.
Here's the weekly clip :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T9km63da3E
Hi there,
Here's a new one. The music is slightly different this time.
Still lo-fi. I'm considering going HD but I have 12 more landscapes that are already rendered... I dont know yet.
https://youtu.be/LEJzboFbfXw
By the way, Shouldn't I post in TG Animation rather than Image Sharing ?
Hi everyone,
I have not given up my project but I had no time to come back here on the forum.
And I had an issue with my computer, I may have burnt it out of calculations (is it even possible to overuse a computer, make it too hot too often ? It was a 2011 MbP, which seemed to overheat a bit)
Anyway, I have new clips to share. But I had the feeling that this topic started to be boring. Maybe I should open a new thread in the Animation section, what do you think ? I'm glad to share but I'd be pissed if I were annoying you with too much "check my work" posts ;)
At least I have more time now (and a new computer), I hope I can come back here more often...
Laptops are not great at long-term and repeated rendering tasks, it's true. They're not really built for it. So indeed you could have "burned out" your computer that way.
I like seeing the updates, but after a while there is not necessarily something new to say about them. ;) Unless the work is a new technique or significantly different result. So I suppose the question is what you would like to get out of posting them. Simply to share? Or to get feedback? Or something else?
- Oshyan
Haha Oshyan, you've got me ! Well, I guess I'm always seraching for someone to say he likes my work ;D
Indeed, comments aren't always necessary. Especially because I haven't implemented the advice I've got so far, since I have about 20 landscapes already rendered. Doesn't mean I don't listen, though ;) Feedback is always welcome, I'm steel a newbie on the software. I was just wondering if you guys were interested ; as I said I don't feel comfortable to go here, post my stuff and go away, since I haven't much time to get involved in the other topics (but I read a lot of them even if I don't reply).
So you're right, I'll post the updates and stop worrying about having reactions or not. Anyway I've had good advice so far and I'm grateful about it !
About Laptops I know you're right. The thing is that I need to stay mobile, so I had to buy a new mbp... l'll have to take care not to burn it out ! I definitely have to take a look at Pixelpow...
So, here's a "new" one (I'm late I know ;))
I've tweaked the videos with VDMX and Resolve 15, trying to get a feeling of vintage computing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUM87QRR-m4
Mm, I rather like that latest one! Adding the filters gives it a unique look, certainly. But I particularly liked how the low resolution terrain rendering actually worked really well with the filter. I tend to be interested in seeing people find ways to use low fidelity or "problems" to their advantage, and you've done it well in this case.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on July 19, 2019, 01:55:25 PM
Mm, I rather like that latest one! Adding the filters gives it a unique look, certainly. But I particularly liked how the low resolution terrain rendering actually worked really well with the filter. I tend to be interested in seeing people find ways to use low fidelity or "problems" to their advantage, and you've done it well in this case.
- Oshyan
I completely agree, this last video is really interesting. A very unique take on terrain flybys. Very matrixy in that it looks like a simulation, but not Matrix-like at the same time due to the tone of the music. Well done.
Very pleased that you like it, thanks !
I was afraid this video would be kind of-off topic, being too much processed. I'm glad you think it's not.
The next one wil be more conventional but the one after also uses lo-poly renderings. I wasn't pleased in the beginning but may be cool after all :)
thank you for the comments !