Planetside Software Forums

Just finished one animation (the city) and already the next one on the workbench.

Step by step I finish some stuff, I started some years ago.
At the moment I am working some new details and improvements on the Moon Of Machines.
The last weeks I could refine the Valkyries transormation into chrome a little bit... and her eyes glow now in chrome-plated condition.
The T800 Terminators got a little bit better texture.
Also I deleted that annoying disgusting mommy's boy Justin... 
Instead of that I added JUDGE DAD ;D




Judge Dad will comment everything, anybody says with "I knew she/he'd say that" and comment everything what happens with "I knew that'd happen"
He will not transform to chrome-plated condition:




But he'll drive one of those big Mech Warriors... Therefore he has to put on his helmet:




The Mech Warrior including the animated Sly Stallone model was a big challenge because the conversion of the original maya file into blender of the Robot and then creating the obj sequence for TG wasn't that easy. But I think it's ok... 




Some 3D model credits:

Judge Dredd Helmet by Mechano on Turbossquid
Judge Dredd 3D model by Lurisay on Turbossquid
Sylvester Stallone 3D model by PrintedReality on CGTrader

All these combined in Blender3D and animated with MIXAMO

The new Robot: robot de mech 3D animated model by omg3d on CGTrader

The Robot/Judge Dredd combination is a 90 x 152MB Object sequence (so my HDDs a quite full now ;D )

Incredibly cool!! One thing that came into my mind is, the valkyrie's legs are quite glossy right before she transforms to chrome. One could say, all this is quite exhausting, and she's just sweating, but to my taste it would look great, if you'd apply a subsurface scattering shader to her skin, not too shiny, just a silky little bit, and then transform her into this cold chrome material.

Thanks Hannes.

Ok I could try. But it will be a long way. It's just been today that most of you mean SSS as SubSurfaceScattering and NOT SimpleShapeShader as I often thought ;D
My SSS skills are zero... better -9.999 if you want so ;)

My basics from what I read so far: we use a glass shader and do some special settings on the Sub-surface-Tab
All this rendered with the Pathtracer.

I've seen that the wiki is updated.

Last hurdle: I was stuck at 4.40.67 and as I saw, reflections in the PT didn't work properly there:



So I did it - klicked on the purchase button for a new Perpetual License for TG4 (I need this version for the 5 additional render licences)



I'll check at home if the shopping tour worked and then upgrade all PCs
...and then back to school... :)

Quote from: DocCharly65 on November 05, 2021, 09:12:11 AMMy basics from what I read so far: we use a glass shader and do some special settings on the Sub-surface-Tab

Actually it's not that complicated. I shared a PT subsurface scattering shader setup for human skin in the file sharing section:

https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27382.0.html
(Human skin is in part two)

You'd just have to import the appropriate clipfile, add your textures, and you're done.

Thanks Hannes :)

I had already fou7nd that and downloaded an hour ago... good to have had the right instinct :)


On suggestion would be helpful: My (human) skins usually always look like this:





My instinctively options to integrate your tgc are:

A: top down as a reflectivity function of the skin shader



B1: replace my reflecticity shade this way:



B2: replace my reflecticity shade this way:



Is one of my ideas the correct way?

Thanks again for your idea and the hint to your tgc's.

I'll do some experiments on weekend. Now it's time for an office meeting. (one of the positive ones - boss wants to give me a new business car... but I guess I'll have to clean and do more like this about the old car ;D )

Quote from: DocCharly65 on November 05, 2021, 10:18:53 AMIs one of my ideas the correct way?

Actually not really.

Just replace your shader completely by my setup and feed the IMSs (Image Map Shader) with the appropriate textures. As far as I remember the IMSs are already set to "Object UV (if available)". If not, do so.
You can either use the reflectivity of the glass shader for an overall reflectivity or use the "specular carrier" with a masked reflective shader.
All in all you basically need only the "IMS Diffuse/SSS Skin/SSS Carrier"-portion for subsurface scattering. The rest is for more controlled reflectivity and for bump if needed.

...and don't forget, the settings are made for real scale models. If your models are larger or smaller, you'll have to adjust the glass shader's decay distance.
(It's always good to rescale models to real scale before importing them into TG, to avoid unwanted extra work, but I'm sure, you know that! ;) )

Meeting over - new car the same type as the old one - good! So I need no manual for the windshield wipers ...  ;D

Thanks for the info Hannes - I really forgot the Image Map Shader or have overseen it. I usually use it for my animated monitors or things like that to control the luminosity function input.

Terrific animations. They really look fine to me. But I agree with Hannes about the 'plastic' legs. If SSS won't work properly, I'd just tone that reflection down, and perhaps add some drops running down  8)

Thanks Ulco :)

I will look after the plastic legs, when I have installed the new TG version. but I must wait a bit untill I have finished many already started animations. Carefully reduce the reflectivity is plausible possibility but anyway I should learn the SSS feature so why not do both: Increase the quality / look of the skin AND learn something new? In my obsession with the film, I've been trapped in unchanged knowledge of TG for too long anyway.

The first tests are running. Not very successful.

After inserting the tgc I added the IMS Diffuse image, the IMS Specular mask image and the IMS Bump image. I got just black legs --- a beautiful very black Black - but black ;D



On the rectangles to the right side of the shader-trees you can see that there's in fact no color-input anywhere


Fortunately I remembered one little thing from earlier experiments with image map shaders: Activate repeat X and Y:
Now I get a kind of input on all 3 shaders Diffuse, Specular mask and Bump but only the specular seems to work on the render result...




Still a long way to go....  I will continue to report

The decay distance is very, very important, and has to be tweaked to the right scale for different objects. Right now it's too high, so the depth is outside the object, creating just black as what would be receiving a density look isn't there mesh wise based on the scale.

Thanks very much Jordan. You cut the time spent on my experiments a lot.
I'm a little proud that I was on the right way already but at that moment exactly in the wrong direction ;D I increased the decay distance instead of making it smaller.
I already had tried some settings of the "color-tab" if the IMS Diffuse shader. 

The results were better but still bad.
Now the first result I can base the next steps on:
Decay divided by 100 (my model is live-size *10 so it seems the number needs to be changed with the potential function) + Multiply RGB by 3



Next steps are first increasing the AA to really see how the skin looks like.
Then perhaps playing around with the IMS Specular ... and then we'll see what a 1280x720 render with an AA up to - I guess 8 or higher has render time.

Ok that seems to work in fact and the result looks really not bad...
But even AA 5 looks grainy - so far rendertime 1h33min.
I am a little afraid what will happen if I enable DoF and increase the resolutionm to 1280x720.




At the moment a renderjob is running with increased reflectivity and AA 7.
Depending on that result I'll perhaps do a hard decision about that fan film project, what I'm already some months thinking about for some months.

Did you ever see my topic about fake SSS?  It's a lot faster but requires the creation of map for what you want subsurfacey.

Here it is: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27494.msg273088.html#msg273088

Essentially, using a transmission map you merge between just a default shader, and the SSS, or a default shader faking SSS glow with transparency. This speeds up render time a whole lot more than using density of glass itself, as even what's very dense still has a lot of unneeding SSS calculations.

I also feel it comes out more realistic and less like a doll and plastic, or wax. SSS for realism should use SSS maps, additionally, we need to control the SSS colour tint which isn't even available yet (ears having a more intense colour than say the cheeks so it's not a uniform tone).

Sorry folks, the effort for "just one hobby" has meanwhile become too great.

I started all this just for fun and to do just a small vid of approx. 5-6 minutes without sense  and special aim.
Meanwhile my demands on myself and on the quality of the animations are far out of everything that makes sense. Every 2 or 3 months I could delete everything I made in the past and restart rendering. My first animations were AA3 and good enough. Meanwhile I render almost all in AA8/10 or even 12 and I am still not satisfied. Next step would have started tonight in rerendering all in PT... a neverending story.

I'd say enough is enough. I have proven what I wanted to prove (ok  - in reality I've proven the opposite): A single person cannot create a movie of the length and quality like George Lucas does films. One man cannot do what usually is be done by several 1000s of people.

I MUST stop this now because it's meanwhile mentaly not good for me any more and financial it's so far not a real problem - but if I never started this hobby I could efford to retire working 3-4 yeras earlier! (Only examples: 4-5k $ for CGTrader models, same for Turbosquid, including dies PCs it must have been  approx. 10.000$ for PC equipment. 3-4k $ renderfarms and last but not least 25.000 $ energy costs.)

You have seen right. My YT Channel, all contents are deleted and/or formated (including all HDD savings - ok you can't have seen that...). Necessary! Or would you leave a hidden reserve of dope for a junkie on withdrawal? So I close this chapter. I don't regret the 10 years TG, but I will end my addictive obsession now. And believe me. You don't end an addiction by saying to yourself "just a little less Terragen, then it's okay". Stop means stop. But I won't just disappear without saying "good bye" and "thanks" to all of you helping, motivating and sometimes just joking and having fun.

CU,
Nils

It's a little depressing to hear, as your work has always been a great inspiration, and incorporated so much nostalgia from growing up. However if this "hobby" (and I say that lightly as I totally understand where you are coming from) is causing you stress, and hardship and you want to be done with it, I can only support that and hope things get better. Just know, I don't say this just for myself, WE appreciate your work and have admired it. Thank you for sharing with us.

I sent you a pm, Nils. Very sad to hear this, and I wish you all the best!

Holy cow, that was quite unexpected, Nils! :o
I'm sad to hear all that, but I think, I understand what you mean. It may become a real obsession to improve things more and more without an end in sight. When you can't manage to take a break anymore for example, then it might be the right decision to quit all this and see, how life changes (hopefully).
I guess, it's not only the money you spent, but also a lot of time. Lifetime.
So, it's heartbreaking, but I wish you all the best, old chap. Brothers in animation I'd say... :)

Hello Nils,
I'm sorry for you. Passions sometimes lead us into financial dead ends of depression etc. It is true that it is sometimes difficult to stop taking a break from a passion, etc.
You have a lot of talent. You have proven it to us all and no one can say otherwise.
I wish you the best for you.

Thanks friends :)
I thank you for understanding my decision and for all the support I got here. A little Farewell present will come when I have got a little distance. All renders will come together to a last film. It would be a shame to let all gone lost completely. But I anyway didn't want to become famous. 10 fans who liked it would have been enough. On my YT channel I had to gain the terrible realization, that that stupid little Airwolf animation had almost 90,000 clicks and the people started to order changes like in a warehouse: "Add that famous car, add another TV show that I know, the landing gears are mounted in the wrong direction, where's Mc Gyver?, why are there no tanks?, why is nobody shooting?, ... " People are no longer able to simply enjoy something but have to categorize it because they know everything better. That is why people now say, for example: Germany consists of 80 million professional footballers and football coaches, all of whom could do better than the national coach. :)

I'm not really frustrated but tired about all this. The energy to be creative - even to have the will to be creative is used up.

Another thing: I just have to disagree about the talent ;) . Perhaps I can tell funny stories and make nonsense to plausible wisdoms for people with a similar humor like me. But real artistic accomplishments and the little for TG necessary mathematic basics are only possible for me if I invest everything + 120%. Too much for a hobby.

And it will be a relaxing time when I learn again to enyoy a e.g. park with trees, flowers and butterflies in the nature without that arrogance to say "no problem I can create that, too - how many polygons?"
Perhaps I'll use the time to start all my LEGO (and alternative) sets...

And as I said. Give me some weeks and stay tuned a last time for a last film. I'll post a cloud link for a while here when it's time.
Thanks again for all.
CU

I have to disagree with your disagreement, Nils. Talent comes in gradients and flavors and I rate yours very high. I just wish you fare well and get some undigitalization in real nature! CU indeed, I hope.....

Sorry to hear this news. But a life out of balance is not good. Good for you for seeing this. 

It's also good that you have no regrets about the time and effort spent on your "little" project. You have a wonderful sense of humor, and much, much talent. Thank you for giving us a front-row seat.

Good luck to you!

Hi Nils, kind of hate you made this decision because I've always enjoyed your animations, and they have prompted me at times to scratch my head and ask "how in heck did he do that?" But I really do hope this works out well for you.

Sad to hear this Nils! But i think i can understand you.
As i was working on my old animation for 2 years or so it was frustrating from time to times.
I wish you well and good luck Nils.