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General => Terragen Animation => Topic started by: Hannes on September 23, 2019, 05:21:32 AM

Title: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 23, 2019, 05:21:32 AM
Here is the animation part of this thread:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,26961.0.html

I'm planning to create two additional scenes around this one. I'll see...

It wasn't easy at all, although the scene is quite simple. I needed motion blur of course, but TG's internal motion blur (3D and 2D) doesn't work, because it's only camera blur, so the object is heavily blurred as well.
So I rendered everything without motion blur, but I had to use a mask to separate the BG from the falcon in After effects when I tried to create the motion blur in postwork, which is far aqay from perfect. A lot of fiddling around.
I hope there will be some decent object motion blur in TG soon.

Edit: the movie doesn't upload!!!!!! See this thread:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,26971.new.html#new

I'll post it as soon, it's possible... :(
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on September 23, 2019, 06:15:14 AM
In a planet situation I had some interstellar device at front, some planets much further away, and I moved the camera over a few frames, then set motion blur, and the device was blurred. So if distances are really big that may help to fake object blur. But that was for a still.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 23, 2019, 06:22:23 AM
Quote from: Dune on September 23, 2019, 06:15:14 AMIn a planet situation I had some interstellar device at front, some planets much further away, and I moved the camera over a few frames, then set motion blur, and the device was blurred. So if distances are really big that may help to fake object blur. But that was for a still.
I did that before, and it's cool, but in my case it doesn't work. Nevertheless thanks for the tip!!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 24, 2019, 04:26:15 AM
Is it only me, or does anyone else have this problem recently? It always worked for me. Maybe someone of you could try to upload something with the size of let's say 4MB and see, if it works? Even a rar file didn't upload, so it's not file specific... >:(
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 24, 2019, 05:17:43 AM
At least, here it is on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/361996012
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on September 24, 2019, 06:31:00 AM
Cool!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: dorianvan on September 24, 2019, 11:24:01 AM
Nice work. Would be good to see the shadow of the Falcon traveling along the ground too. And maybe some heat wave behind it.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 24, 2019, 12:40:37 PM
Quote from: dorianvan on September 24, 2019, 11:24:01 AMNice work. Would be good to see the shadow of the Falcon traveling along the ground too. And maybe some heat wave behind it.
Heatwave sounds great!
Actually the shadow is where it belongs: out of sight ;D.
Seriously, I'd love to see the shadow too, but I chose a high altitude of the sun to get good lighting conditions from each point of view.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on September 25, 2019, 02:48:23 AM
Heatwave sounds like an intriguing enterprise. Immediately a locally (behind the craft) and slightly displaced glass pane comes to mind, distorting the further terrain. Perhaps even with a smoothing shader. No idea if that could work. Be sure to set subdiv settings to 1, if you try this (at home).
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Tangled-Universe on September 25, 2019, 10:26:58 AM
Very cool Hannes!
I love the suggestion of a traveling Millennium Falcon shadow on the surface.

Quote from: Dune on September 25, 2019, 02:48:23 AMHeatwave sounds like an intriguing enterprise. Immediately a locally (behind the craft) and slightly displaced glass pane comes to mind, distorting the further terrain. Perhaps even with a smoothing shader. No idea if that could work. Be sure to set subdiv settings to 1, if you try this (at home).

Yeah exactly. I have a .tgd somewhere where I did the same with a water shader on a plane. It works. Reflections should be disabled if I recall correctly.
Smoothing shader I would avoid though. A low octave noise achieves similar results to applying a smooth filter shader on the same noise with more octaves, but it would be slower (another node to process).
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on September 25, 2019, 10:47:50 AM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on September 25, 2019, 10:26:58 AMA low octave noise achieves similar results to applying a smooth filter
Actually I was thinking about that this morning, and about to test it. If setting smallest size to 0.5 and comparing that to a smallest size 0.1 and smooth filter of 0.5. I had the impression that everything is really smoother with a smooth filter applied. Going to test anyway.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KyL on September 25, 2019, 11:09:11 AM
This is really cool!

I like the way your damaged the Star Destroyer, the mesh displacer works wonder on this! Great sense of scale as well!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Tangled-Universe on September 26, 2019, 06:38:54 AM
Hannes, just curious, could you post your render settings for an animation like this?
For example, detail blending?
Or did you just hit the animation check button?
What were render times, if you rendered it yourself?
TG became quite a bit faster recent years and render services like PixelPlow cheaper, so I'm leaning towards trying some animations myself too, though not as fancy as yours I guess.

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 26, 2019, 09:04:30 AM
Actually, I didn't use any fancy settings. I didn't touch Detail blending, because in this size it's more some sort of a test. I used the path tracer, which increases rendertimes of course, but with MPD/AA 0.6/6 and the robust adaptive sampling each frame took around ten minutes.
At the moment I'm rendering a test animation with the cameras animated in 3ds max and imported into TG. It's a total of 600 frames, so I'm rendering at 0.4 K (sounds much better than 400 px wide!!! ;D )
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 26, 2019, 09:41:15 AM
Here is a single frame of the sequence with a cockpit camera. It's rendered as a 400 px image upscaled to 800 px. Tiny, but good enough for testing purposes.

Unfortunately the imported camera is rather shaky. In 3ds max it was an absolutely smooth animation. I tried everything and did some tests with FBX and the plugin by emecstudios (which seem to be gone...) as well. Couldn't get rid of the shaking. I was planning to add some handheld effect, but it's a bit too much. I'll post it, when it's finished.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Matt on September 26, 2019, 02:54:53 PM
Quote from: Hannes on September 26, 2019, 09:41:15 AMHere is a single frame of the sequence with a cockpit camera. It's rendered as a 400 px image upscaled to 800 px. Tiny, but good enough for testing purposes.

Unfortunately the imported camera is rather shaky. In 3ds max it was an absolutely smooth animation. I tried everything and did some tests with FBX and the plugin by emecstudios (which seem to be gone...) as well. Couldn't get rid of the shaking. I was planning to add some handheld effect, but it's a bit too much. I'll post it, when it's finished.

It may be an issue with floating point precision. This is usually a problem when animating something that travels over large distances, and is an issue with the FBX file, not Terragen. I would try to render the ship as a separate pass with the translation removed and reset to 0,0,0. Then the camera motion only needs to be relative to the ship and the numbers should be precise enough.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 27, 2019, 12:18:37 AM
Thanks for the explanation, Matt! I don't think either, it's a TG issue. I'll see, if I can fix it, and if not, I'll probably take your advice and render the falcon separately.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 28, 2019, 06:18:03 AM
Here is the low res cockpit view animation:
https://vimeo.com/362956722
I spent a whole day trying to get rid of the shaky cam, but without success. I researched for the floating point stuff Matt had mentioned, and found out, that 3ds Max doesn't export the exact coordinates, but rounds up or down. I guess, this is, what causes the noisy cam path.
I also tried to delete all animation keys between every each 20 frames (for the camera position and rotation in X, Y, and Z, and for the falcon as well), which was a pain in the ass!!! Finally the whole camera movement went crazy, so I'll take the shaky cam and consider this as heavy turbulences. ::)

I didn't render the first 80 frames, because the wiggling was even stronger, and the last frames, when the falcon flies into the thruster of the destroyer will not be used.
I'm rendering a view from outside as well, and when it's OK, I'll mix these shots. Maybe I'll animate the falcon also inside the destroyer...
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on September 28, 2019, 07:46:21 AM
I actually like the shaky camera very much. It's like the cameraman is shaken by the turbulence in the craft! Very nice!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KlausK on September 28, 2019, 05:35:24 PM
I as well do not find the camera shaking too distracting or annoying.
Gives the ship rather worn and torn feeling. It had seen better days is my impression.
If you could manage to animate the pilots head a little bit - like leaning into the banking of the ships flight path -
that would really sell it to me.
If it is possible to export the camera animation as a fbx I`d like to take a look at it and see how Softimage imports it.

CHeers, Klaus
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 29, 2019, 04:40:12 AM
Quote from: KlausK on September 28, 2019, 05:35:24 PMIf you could manage to animate the pilots head a little bit - like leaning into the banking of the ships flight path -
that would really sell it to me.
That's what I had in mind as well. I'll do some tests for sure!!


Sure I can attach the FBX, but I'm not sure if you can check the wiggling, when there are no close reference objects. I also attached the .chan file.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KlausK on September 30, 2019, 04:26:42 AM
Thanks, Hannes.
I imported the fbx in XSI and one could clearly see the stepped fcurves in the Animation Editor.
Even though the channels were marked as spline curves. I smoothed, resampled and simplified the curves.
Maybe you want to give my exported fbx a try in 3DSMAX (which I don`t have).
I`d be curious what XSI made of your fbx. The scale factor was set to "Automatic".
On Import the factor was 100 (cm) and on Export it was 1 (cm).
CHeers, Klaus
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on September 30, 2019, 09:52:23 AM
Thanks a lot, Klaus. I'll have a look. :)
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Ariel DK on September 30, 2019, 01:09:41 PM
Quote from: Hannes on September 30, 2019, 09:52:23 AMMuchas gracias, Klaus. Le echaré un vistazo.:)
Waiting for the result Hannes!
Just in case, i can also re-made the animation in C4D, wich export camera animation with exactly coordinates and scales in FBX format...
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 01, 2019, 04:08:15 AM
Thanks for your efforts, guys. I imported your FBX, Klaus, and it's still shaky. But don't worry, in the meantime I started to like the shaky animation as well. :)
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Ariel DK on October 01, 2019, 06:12:46 PM
Hey Hannes
Just in case, it took me a few minutes, and it seems to work nicely in TG... check this out  ;)
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 01, 2019, 06:54:55 PM
Thanks a lot, Ariel! I tested it, and yes, it works, but it's shaky as well. It's not noticeable, when you're quite far away from the cam, but once there is the cockpit with the cam inside, it's shaking.
and apart from that, the movement of the falcon is imported as well as a chan file, so both are shaking a bit.
However thanks again, I like it like it is now.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Ariel DK on October 01, 2019, 07:26:24 PM
Quote from: Hannes on October 01, 2019, 06:54:55 PMThanks a lot, Ariel! I tested it, and yes, it works, but it's shaky as well. It's not noticeable, when you're quite far away from the cam, but once there is the cockpit with the cam inside, it's shaking.
and apart from that, the movement of the falcon is imported as well as a chan file, so both are shaking a bit.
However thanks again, I like it like it is now.
I tested it with a animated torus and sphere object simulating the cockpit (i don't know the real scale of the yours, but i assumed that is human-real scale), and, although i don't noticed ANY shak, the thing is that i used the movement data of the camera to create the animation of this objects... so... if you copy this FBX animation to your Falcon object, you gonna get both elements moving as the same, still shaky, but maybe unnoticeable regarding to the ground or far objects. just try out  ::)
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Ariel DK on October 01, 2019, 07:36:06 PM
Ok, 10 mnts render just to be sure i wasn't babbling ;D
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 02, 2019, 04:30:52 AM
Thanks again, Ariel! Yes, I assume, it works, if everything in the scene uses the same chan file. Unfortunately in my scene things are different. The falcon has its pivot at 0,0,0 of course (when it's not animated). But I can't offset the pivot of the cockpit cam in 3ds max, so that it's at the same place like the falcon's pivot. And then there's a new Han Solo in my actual scene, which is an object sequence of 600 (!) items with the pivot at 0,0,0 originally as well (but sitting in the cockpit in front of the cockpit cam). So there are three different camera paths, which lead to this wiggling.

Maybe I could offset Han Solo's pivot in 3ds max, so that he might use the same chan file like the falcon's, but altering the falcon's pivot, so that it matches the camera's pivot seems difficult. Apart from that the view from inside the cockpit might look too static in case that would work.

But great ideas! I'll do some more tests to maybe get some controlled random motion.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Matt on October 02, 2019, 01:24:29 PM
Quote from: Hannes on October 02, 2019, 04:30:52 AMThanks again, Ariel! Yes, I assume, it works, if everything in the scene uses the same chan file. Unfortunately in my scene things are different. The falcon has its pivot at 0,0,0 of course (when it's not animated). But I can't offset the pivot of the cockpit cam in 3ds max, so that it's at the same place like the falcon's pivot. And then there's a new Han Solo in my actual scene, which is an object sequence of 600 (!) items with the pivot at 0,0,0 originally as well (but sitting in the cockpit in front of the cockpit cam). So there are three different camera paths, which lead to this wiggling.

All the more reason to render the ship - and everything inside it - at the origin, as if it were on a stage. You only need to animate the background and the lighting to create the illusion that the ship is moving. You could keep the rotation and then the lighting becomes fairly simple.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 02, 2019, 01:56:48 PM
I know and I did that before in my "Who's your daddy?" clip. The thing is, in this case there are beautiful reflections of the landscape in the falcon's glass, and I would really love to keep them. I don't think, I could create these with the "John Dykstra" method.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Ariel DK on October 04, 2019, 12:45:10 PM
Quote from: Hannes on October 02, 2019, 04:30:52 AMThanks again, Ariel! Yes, I assume, it works, if everything in the scene uses the same chan file. Unfortunately in my scene things are different. The falcon has its pivot at 0,0,0 of course (when it's not animated). But I can't offset the pivot of the cockpit cam in 3ds max, so that it's at the same place like the falcon's pivot. And then there's a new Han Solo in my actual scene, which is an object sequence of 600 (!) items with the pivot at 0,0,0 originally as well (but sitting in the cockpit in front of the cockpit cam). So there are three different camera paths, which lead to this wiggling.

Maybe I could offset Han Solo's pivot in 3ds max, so that he might use the same chan file like the falcon's, but altering the falcon's pivot, so that it matches the camera's pivot seems difficult. Apart from that the view from inside the cockpit might look too static in case that would work.

But great ideas! I'll do some more tests to maybe get some controlled random motion.

Well, i'm not 3ds max user so, i can't say much more here... Anyway, i can't wait to see how you achieve it (or how far you go) with this one!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 07, 2019, 07:29:45 AM
Here is the mixed low res version of different camera angles. Originally rendered at 400 by 225 px and upscaled to 800 by 450 px. There's a sudden texture change in the view of the cockpit from outside, since I decided to improve the texture a bit, but I didn't want to rerender the scene, since it's only a low res preview.

https://vimeo.com/364759640
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: DocCharly65 on October 07, 2019, 07:53:20 AM
As I already posted to Ulco's twister... the same here:
Wow! Big things happened here since I started my technical and social media break some weeks ago...

again one of your cinema like little miracles, Hannes, Great!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on October 07, 2019, 08:08:09 AM
Great stuff!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KlausK on October 10, 2019, 05:44:08 PM
See, the shaking wasn`t so bad after all ;)
Looks very cinematic. And how the great space ship is integrated into the landscape is really amazing.
CHeers, Klaus
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 18, 2019, 02:00:16 AM
A test for an explosion inside the wrecked star destroyer. Basically a card object animated towards the camera with a transparent image sequence and an invisible duplicate of it with a higher luminosity value to illuminate the environment. Have to take a little break, since I'm a little bit fed up with this stuff. Gonna continue later on.

https://vimeo.com/367188185
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Dune on October 18, 2019, 02:08:05 AM
That works really 'cool'!
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: DocCharly65 on October 18, 2019, 05:36:53 AM
Really not bad :)

Cool trick! 8)
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Oshyan on October 18, 2019, 05:23:20 PM
I'd say it works pretty darn well!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KyL on October 19, 2019, 09:27:08 AM
That looks really good!

Maybe you could try doing the same trick but mapping the texture as the depth modulator on a cloud layer :)
And animated a light Source behind it to get a nice volumetric lighting...
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 19, 2019, 02:15:25 PM
That's a cool idea! Probably I won't use a lightsource for the orange lighting, but the invisible card object, since this produces automatically a lighting that corresponds with the image sequence.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: KyL on October 19, 2019, 03:10:42 PM
Yes sure, keep the card, it works wonder on surfaces! What I meant was using a point light to light the volume of the cloud and give it some shape.
Title: Re: Millennium falcon flying
Post by: Hannes on October 19, 2019, 04:10:32 PM
Ah, I see. Gonna try that later. Thanks!!