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After almost two months solid rendering and my PC nearly melting down in a London heatwave, my animation "Desert Dawn Drive" finally published to YouTube and Vimeo:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBFGnQZQBwI&feature=youtu.be
https://vimeo.com/353207617

Started out as a quick demo for my Terraman script and got a bit more ambitious...

This is absolutely stunning! Really exceptional work.

I'm curious which plant populations were rendered in Maya vs. Terragen and what drove that choice. Perhaps realism up close and not having the render budget for path tracing in TG?

Also a small note, my name is misspelled in your descriptions. ;) But I very much appreciate the mention!

- Oshyan

Great work! Finally get to see it finished. I love the physics you did with the car, and the Terragen environment looks great. My only C&C is that the truck, when it stops, has no weight. No inertia hitting the pads and shocks.

Damn that's good. Love the reflections of the environment in the car.
Please do a breakdown :)

Thanks Oshyan,

The TG renders weren't path traced mainly due to time and budget.

The populations would hold up just as well in either program and the TG pops and Maya versions matched pretty well. I only used the population in Maya where they either passed in front of the truck in the foreground or fell under the shadow of the truck behind it for the comp.

Since an imported version of the truck (in Terragen) couldn't motion blur, I rendered all the shadow passes in Maya to comp over the terrain, so it meant making sure those areas of  the population touched by the shadow were Maya elements also.

Quote from: undefinedAlso a small note, my name is misspelled in your descriptions.

Whoops, sorry Oshyan :)  - fixed now!

cyphyr:

QuotePlease do a breakdown

Absolutely! Need a new mini project now!

WASasquatch:

QuoteNo inertia hitting the pads and shocks.

Agree, animation is not my strong suit, and I'd definitely revisit some of the truck ani if I had to do it over.

Quote from: digitalguru on August 11, 2019, 01:24:29 PMThe populations would hold up just as well in either program and the TG pops and Maya versions matched pretty well. I only used the population in Maya where they either passed in front of the truck in the foreground or fell under the shadow of the truck behind it for the comp.

Since an imported version of the truck (in Terragen) couldn't motion blur, I rendered all the shadow passes in Maya to comp over the terrain, so it meant making sure those areas of  the population touched by the shadow were Maya elements also.

Ah, absolutely, that makes sense. 


If object motion blur existed in Terragen, how much would that have changed things? And what would you need material and/or rendering-wise to consider rendering the truck and environment entirely in Terragen? Just curious, I know this is a demo of an inter-app workflow, and it works superbly!

- Oshyan

An absolute great animation!

Only thing that I am missing is in fact the weight of the car. The car looks somehow a bit unnaturally sprung. The inmates appear to be permanently connected to the car ... maybe that's what gives this appearance?

But anyway outstanding work! Big Like!

Quote from: undefinedIf object motion blur existed in Terragen, how much would that have changed things?

It might have done, the original plan was to import the truck geo and just have it shadow the terrain with primary visibilty off, but the motion blur meant pushing that back to Maya.

In the end it was better to have those elements separated from the TG renders - I had shadows from the volumetrics and it made combining separate shadow passes from the truck, volumetrics, and plants much more flexible.

The TG renders were by far the longest renders (about 1.5 hours per frame on Pixel Plow) and frequently the Maya elements changed so it was better not to have the shadows burnt in.

Quote from: undefinedAnd what would you need material and/or rendering-wise to consider rendering the truck and environment entirely in Terragen?

This was started before path tracing was introduced in TG - it would be interesting to see how a truck render in TG could stand up against Maya/Arnold, motion blur aside. 

The truck textures use a lot of UDIMs and there's no support for that in TG? (haven't looked to be honest) and there's a car paint shader on the metal body of the truck (procedural flakes).

I approached it like a vfx studio pipeline setup, and those elements would be separated for flexibility in versioning up animation.

Having said that though, on a personal level with my home setup combining everything in Terragen would have saved me over a months rendering time :)

Thanks for the details and feedback. UDIMs are indeed not currently supported, and a car paint shader with procedural flakes could be possible, but difficult to achieve perhaps. There is no specific material model/mode for it in any case. And of course it certainly makes sense to do it this way from a VFX studio pipeline perspective. I was just curious what was behind the decisions made. :)

- Oshyan

Quote from: DocCharly65 on August 11, 2019, 02:32:00 PMThe car looks somehow a bit unnaturally sprung.

Yes, animation is not my forte, and the truck is largely procedurally animated with springs and such, though if you do look at some vids of this truck in action it is suprisingly bouncy :)

The inmate (love that term - suggests a fugitive on the run in the desert :) ), also had a spring on him, but you kind of miss it in the frame - he needs a kind of rag doll dynamic on him.

I did miss something crucial in the setup in the scene. The Maya scene was huge and the action was a long way away from the world origin, that caused all sorts of errors in the animation - the drivers skin animation is actually vibrating because of that! But you don't see that at this distance.

Wow, that is really awesome. I love the way the debris is thrown about by the car's wheels and such details. Astonishing work. Looking forward to a breakdown!

Wow this is amazing! Great stuff. Minor crit is the sound. This car got a very big engine and it roars a lot. IMHO the sound design is not matching the action and the car very well.

Simply wow!!!!! Amazing and realistic! I agree about the missing weight of the braking part, but nevertheless it's looking spectacular!

Quote from: digitalguru on August 11, 2019, 02:49:51 PMThe inmate (love that term - suggests a fugitive on the run in the desert ), also had a spring on him, but you kind of miss it in the frame - he needs a kind of rag doll dynamic on him.

;D ;D sorry - I was too tired and lazy when writing so that I used google translation instead of my brain... sometimes it works... sometimes you get funny things ... almost nonsense ;D Of course I ment passengers... but the idea about prison fugitives is not far-fetched when you look at the scene ... ;)

Quote from: DocCharly65 on August 12, 2019, 08:11:33 AMsorry - I was too tired and lazy when writing so that I used google translation instead of my brain

No, that's great - gives him personality :)  I would suggest he's a little stiff and rigid as he's stressed at having escaped prison  :)

Here's a breakdown of one of the shots:

Cool video and nice breakdown.

Great to see the breakdown! 

- Oshyan

Quote from: j meyer on August 12, 2019, 11:59:06 AMCool video and nice breakdown.

Quote from: Oshyan on August 12, 2019, 12:49:13 PMGreat to see the breakdown!

- Oshyan

echo both! :)

Cool! Thanks!

Quote from: digitalguru on August 12, 2019, 11:34:27 AMHere's a breakdown of one of the shots:

Super cool, love seeing the breakdowns and how things are layered and composited, and isolated. Thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks for making and showing this. It's exactly the spot I love best.

Quote from: Dune on August 13, 2019, 01:28:42 AMIt's exactly the spot I love best.

:)

Thanks for all your comments and to Oshyan for tweeting this on the Planetside feed :)

Crazy good! After watching the the breakdown and seeing the meticulous steps involved, I'm truly appreciative of how much labor and skill went into this short animation. An eye-opening demonstration for sure!

That's very good! The landscape and effects are very convincing. Like others I see the weakest point in the vehicule motion/animation. We don't feel the inertia of it moving.
Great job!