FXWARS! THE RACE: David Schoneveld

[whalerider]

Not bad for a first pass.
Btw, great job on the Maya Fluid Effects DVDs.

[CobraX]

Nice 1st pass.
destruct007, what are the locators on top of your cars for?
How did you get the 2nd car's body to wobble after the impact? Is it keyed or dynamix?

It looks promising man, the car hitting the tree...leave falling from the tree, the cars exploding and the trees catching fire...hehe


Cheers!

Xavier.

[destruct007]

Btw, great job on the Maya Fluid Effects DVDs.
thanks! I guess my fluids better look spot on ;) And thanks for the reply CobraX, you really haven't seen anything yet :D

I story boarded out my seq, to about 30 seconds, made it kind of like a commercial for FXWars, I'll post them tonight. I highly recommend story boarding out your sequence. I did mine at about a 1 inch high by 1.5 inches wide, rough but that's fine to get the idea, and it really simplifies the animation. I think I can make my small area of track look like a lot more .
I also scetched out the fx and how I'm going to do some of them, I can pos that too but it may not make a lot of sence to people.

[destruct007]

So I story boarded these like I said, just rough sketches of what I want to do, you can see how I'm planning on focusing on the fx not the animation, like CU on the fx where the animation can be almost a straight line.
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/storyBoard_1.jpg
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/storyBoard_2.jpg
then I sketched out the idea of how I'm going to go about these fx make sure I'm not forgetting and I know whats comming up. These probably won'ty make a lot of sence but I wanted to post them to show some of you guys my process.

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/fxSketch_1.jpg
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/fxSketch_2.jpg

[mustan9]

nice...

How long is it going be?

[Bonedaddy]

Looking good, Dave. Good planning -- lots of pretty solid effects opportunities in here, from snow, to the wheel popping off, to the explosion. I look forward to seeing your snow plumes coming off the tires and swirling in the car's wake (if I interpreted your drawings correctly), as I've always loved that sort of effect. Also eager to see your fluid work.

Thanks for posting up your boards!

[destruct007]

right now I'm estimating it to be 612 frames @ 24fps so about 26 seconds.

Jason, yeah, you interpreted correctly, I'm pretty excited to do these fx too. I was watching cars in the rain this weekend, as I was driving, thinking how fun that would be to make snow blast out of the wheel wells like that. I'm going to see if I can get away with just particles for that effect, and then use the computer heave calc time for the fluids for the smoke plumage... if it doesn't look good enough with just particles I'm going to add fluids to that, I just know that that will take a long time b/c it would need to be a large container for the cars to travel through...

Oh tip for high rez 3d fluids (high for me starts around 60x60x60 and greater): When I need high rez fluids in a 3d container I lower the solver quality to like 5 and it counter acts the slowing a little and still maintinas good quality sims. Hope that doesn't confuse anyone, don't just make high rez fluid containers but when you HAVE to that really helps.

[Bonedaddy]

I did a rig similar to that snow plumes effect for a movie awhile back, and what I ended up doing was attaching a volume axis right behind the vehicle, an attenuated radial around its wheelwell, and a drag field a bit behind it... basically, would suck the smoke towards the car, swirl it about a bit, then it would slowly drift off and settle in mid-air and die. Given that your shots won't be focusing on it that long, that may be overkill. Looked fairly nice, but took awhile to set up right, and I was using a lot of point particles, to get the swirliness detail.


Thanks for the fluids tip. I will probably end up using that today at work...

[destruct007]

cool, I'll try that, one question, why a drag feild over a an air field? Did you find it just worked better? and did you use turbulence?

I'm planning on breaking into 2 fx, One the the heavy clumpy snow (high moBlur instance geo) and the cloud like you were talking about. I was going to try the cloud particle for that, so might not be the same thing, might then change pTypes and use points come to think of it, more the better.

[Bonedaddy]

The drag was just so that I could have it slow and sort of float there after being caught in all this turbulent motion. I kept running up against the problem of particles falling out of the vortex spin if I set the conserve very low, but if it was too high, they'd continue to go at very high speeds in weird directions after they exited the car's wake. So, the drag was just to slow them down. It didn't overlap with the radial, and only a bit with the volume axis. It was kind of a balancing act to put together, so there may be a better way, which I'd love to hear, if you come up with one. I just know that it is possible to do with just particles.

[destruct007]

ok so here's my animatic, the animation in here is for blocking purposes. those are actually dups of the car frames, I'm going to animte each one independent of the blocking.... meaning the real animation won't be as crappy.

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_A04.avi

I'd love to hear comments on camera moves, shots, shot leangths, and action. I feel like it needs a little more something. (other than better animation, ha!) this weekend I have deadlined for myself to finalise the animation.
As I see it, this weekend
WEEKEND 5 (as in 5 weeks to go) should be the last bit of animation of the cars,
WEEKEND 4 any bent metel added, and crash fx roughed in
WEEKEND 3 some passes of fx complete
WEEKEND 2 set rendered slap comps
WEEKEND 1 final renders final comp
***I may be off by one weekend, so that maybe minus one... also I work a bit on the week days, I know I'll have to, I'll be gone one of those weekends, argh! I guess I'll convert one of those weeknights into a longer work session. anyway.

My point is times a wastein' better get that animation done, because the point of this is, of course, fx.

[Benman]

Its looking good!, just a suggestion, on the camera maybe add some movement so it looks like its held by a human. I think it wud add to it quite a bit.

:D

[Bonedaddy]

Looking good! Camera comments:

1) First shot, I'd raise it up in Y, and tilt it down, so it's more looking down on the cars.
2) Maybe have a more extreme camera move on the jumping-over-the-hill shot.
3) Move the camera closer to the tree on the crash-into-the-tree shot.
4) I don't think the second-car-skidding-out-of-control shot doesn't tie in super well. Maybe either move the camera closer to the car, or start on the first car, and moves over to see the second car skidding around.


It's all looking super good! My comments are mostly nitpicks.

[mustan9]

That's very cool.

You could give more of an opening shot. Maybe something like a view of the race track with the sound of cars coming in the distance, or you could open up with a close up of the front wheels and pull back. Anything you want but just something to setup your video better.

You just jump into the action, but not in a way that provides an introduction.

[destruct007]

yeah thanks for the comment, that's a good point. I was thinking about it and the first shot is sort of duplicated in a later shot so, your right, there should be a better intro to the race/setup. I can't pull out too far b/c there isn't much geometry out side of what you see, but maybe somethng like that, maybe follow a snow flake down and it gets blown away by the cars flying past. maybe. I'll give it some thought, thanks.

[destruct007]

It's all looking super good! My comments are mostly nitpicks.
feel free to nitpick away I think all comments are helpful! I really do, I'd never take it personally I take what I can work with and fix in a reasonable amount of time and the rest are wishful thinking. :D

oh and Benman I was thinking of writing an expression to do that wabble/subtle camera shake, good thought!

[mattclinch]

Very nice. The editing looks really good. I think it has good pace and a nice storyline.

My only crit would be the way the cars crash, in particular the celica (?) (the one thats not a mini!). From my experience of Rally, especially on what im assuming is a dirt road, when Rally drivers lose control they tend not to fishtail, as they are skilled in driving by getting the back of the car round. It tend more to be overshooting a corner, locking up, turning one way to try and avoid it, but sliding in at an angle, or rolling the car - much like the mini crash.

Just my thought. Looks great though, can;t wait to see it.

[destruct007]

maybe the crash will look better with this newer animation :shrug: :D

So here's my new animatic, more refined animation. I tried to incorporate some of the suggestions, and am open to more even the same ones if you think I didn't quite get it. I added a 2d place holder explosion so you know why I'm planning on holding on that shot for as long as I am.

I liked the suggestion of the sound of approaching cars in the first shot then you see them. So that is how I sort of "fade in"

ok let me know what you guys think!

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_A06.avi

[mustan9]

Wow! Man I love the fire. What software did you use to do that?

The car animations look better in this one. Did you change the motion?

Great work so far.

[Bonedaddy]

I like it! My one suggestion is to start the first shot off slower, with the cars coming up from the distance, and then, as they go by, tilt down to follow them. Maybe add on a couple seconds to the head. That way they're established earlier on, until BAM, you figure out they're racing, and you're into the race. The sound suggestion is good too. Looking good!

The fire looks good even now, can't wait to see the final results.

[destruct007]

the fire is 2d fluids, started with the preset 2dNuke.ma I love the presets to thow stuff into shots quick :D

for that explosion I want a nice volumetric rendered 3d fluid cloud. and some of those pieces falling will have smoke trails.

I definitly have an advantage working here, I just got a huge lesson on lighting, and some good critiques! I'm going to write them down here so I can check here and remember later

I should keep the cameras low at a human scale b/c when you shoot from high up the cars look like toys, and the shot of the jump should be shorter b/c it loses momentum of the sequence. Follow the mini after the jump a little, oh and they suggested adding camera shake, HA, ok ok ok I'm adding camera shake :D

Thanks all these comments are really going to help make this better!

[heiyuu]

Oh my this is going soo good! AWESOMEAGE!

[destruct007]

Ok sunday night, here's my animation close enough that I'm not going ot mess with it a whole lot more, I have a lot of dynamics work to do so that's going to be my focus for now, well that and rendering out some passes duing the days. Let me know what you guys think, I can still make changes. I've been dreaming of all the fx I want to add, and am glad to be past the thick of the animation!

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_A09.mov

I'll probably tweek the animation as I go along, oh I made the geo with lattices then made it blendshapes, I just wanted to get the rough idea in there and start adding debris, smoke and such to cover it all up anyway :D

and the camera shake I added I explain and have a file in the tips section.

[Bonedaddy]

Looking good! I like the opening shot a lot more.

From an editing standpoint, two transitions sort of leap out at me:

1) The first shot to the second. In screen space, the mini is on the right at the end of the first one, then on the far left at the beginning of the second one. Maybe just let them clear frame on the first shot, without panning the camera?
2) The shot where the second car plows into the mini to the shot afterwards. Compositionally, they're pretty much the same. It just seems like it's pulling back, and they edited out the cameraman walking back a bit.

But loving the FX work. Looking forward to seeing more.

[tibes]

Yep, looking great! The only part that bothered me is the camera shake after the impact seems to last just a beat too long.

The fire and smoke is looking really fantastic!

[RobertoOrtiz]

Just a reminder:


One Month To Go (MAY 22th): FXWARS THE RACE! (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=349057)

-R

[Night Hawk]

Ok sunday night, here's my animation close enough that I'm not going ot mess with it a whole lot more, I have a lot of dynamics work to do so that's going to be my focus for now, well that and rendering out some passes duing the days. Let me know what you guys think, I can still make changes. I've been dreaming of all the fx I want to add, and am glad to be past the thick of the animation!

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_A09.mov

I'll probably tweek the animation as I go along, oh I made the geo with lattices then made it blendshapes, I just wanted to get the rough idea in there and start adding debris, smoke and such to cover it all up anyway :D

and the camera shake I added I explain and have a file in the tips section.hi, first I want to thank you about Gnomon Fluid DVDs which they are really gives a professional aspect of using fluids, secondly i have been trying to accomplish your car animation using motion paths but i have realised that your car responds to collisions dynamicly, so how did you make those wheels collisions possible ?? i want to create the same effect with some RealFlow fluids which splashes as the car walks on "curvey" land and motion paths didnt give me that collision effect so far. Also i realised that there are some "boxes" underneath your car wheels so what does it do? Please i need help on this one because i searched all over the net and i still didnt find my request, and did you use motion path for the car chase?? i hope its alright with my questions:blush:, also if you have known sites that can teach how to deal with cars concerning animation and rigging then that would be great too. BTW, your modeling, animation & fluid effects are really great:thumbsup: .

Here's my thread for details.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=350498

[destruct007]

actually I posted a how to in the tips a nd tricks of this section:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=341890

I just key framed the bodies and the wheels kept them selves on the ground for me, or lifted up when they were supposed to. give it a try and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for the comment on the DVD's I'm thinking about making 3 more, but probably take me until the summer to get the files and such together to even start it.

[Night Hawk]

hi, i had my first problem and you can see it on my thread.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3494058#post3494058

[DoubleSupercool]

Nice stuff! Both the crashes look a little lazy at the moment . . . there doesn't seem to by a dynamic BANG! to both of them. Also, love the fire, but you might want to consider a nice big hollywood explosion followed by the black smoke, rather than the black smoke gradually getting thicker.

Of course, all just my opinion.

[SHEPEIRO]

i agree that the crashes just look a little too real, they need more hollywood beef.

the cars kind of stop dead tooo quickly, even watching a few real rally cars, theyre light cars and tend to bounce off what theyt hit, then settle slowly.

so i would suggest giving the firrst car some spin as it hits the tree slightly off centre, then as the second car hits it it should rock (i mean roll sideways) quite significantly. the second car should almost bounce backwards a little with the rear of the car coming up quite high as the bonnet crumples, then as it settles afterwards perhaps roll back a bit more.

IMO

looking good other than that.

[CameronHallam]

Ok had a quick look and im no expert at this, but here is my input..
Looks way to linear and plain...i do realise its a WIP, the cars entering the scene dont seem to move across the terrain a bit, maybe make them bounce as they slide across as the ground is not flat..
When the car hits the tree...it would not just stop it needs to bounce a little and maybe spin slide off it a bit, as well as the tree bending or shaking or somthing similar, same for when the second car hits

[destruct007]

Well, I've been busy updating my demo reel (I'll post it online soon) and tevelling so I've now get time to get back to it (yes excuses, we all have them) :D

Ok so I've decided that you guys are right and that the animation should be cooler, however that would be too much work for me, SSSssooooo I've called in some back up with Burke Roane one of the animators here at luma, :) Isn't it nice to have a professional animator at your call? well, not sure how much time he can put to it, b/c his computer is still in the process of a rebuild/reformate

So, yeah, there's 20 days left or so, I'm thinking of cutting down the sequence, it might just be too much to render in time. I think I'm going to just do the crash scenes, it's better than trying to get the whole thing and it be crappy. I loved the build up but I think I can't do all that. I think it's funny even now I make the same mistakes I made in school, try to do too big a project in too short a time, rather than do a shorter project and do it really well. Who knows if I do get the time I will render the whole thing, I guess we'll see.

[Bonedaddy]

I think it's funny even now I make the same mistakes I made in school, try to do too big a project in too short a time, rather than do a shorter project and do it really well. Who knows if I do get the time I will render the whole thing, I guess we'll see.

You say that, but my money's on you for "team who will actually finish their project and have a cool-looking crash." ;)

[destruct007]

heh, thanks, I am beginnning to worry about these other projects, maybe there are some ghost projects that we don't see, but man, not a lot of animation done with just about 2.5 weeks to go... I don't think I've seen ONE fx test yet, either people are overly confident or not going to do many fx.

So Burke(the animator in the team) wanted textures so I textured the car (edited ones that came with it, just had to start over) Thanks to "k garrow" for the free model from turbo squid.

So the animation is oing to be quite different, we're going with one car, basically the camera in in the second car. and you watch the one car crash. Don't have animation to show yet, here's the textured car.
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCar_A03.jpghttp://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCar_A02.jpghttp://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCar_A01.jpg

I'm going to do a little more tweaking (like adding snow and crap) but that's a pretty good already. There's so much more set up to break this car up right. So the deadlines been extended by 2 weeks right? :hmm: Ok more to come.

[mustan9]

It's always at the end that you have the big push to get things done. I hope you can get done what you wanted to finish. I really liked your test renderings and crash. Even with what you had it was really cool. Just needed texturing, lighting and your done.

[SHEPEIRO]

if you had time!!!
it would be coool to have the camera inside the windscreen of the chasing car, then smash through the glass towards the other car at point of impact. but its prbably way too much work, esp if you wanted to see reflectoins of chasing driver in window.

its a coool idea, if you dont do something like above it will be essential to get the movement of the camera to feel like your the chasing car.

[destruct007]

Ok, last post on the car, I got the fluid explosion ready this weekend, but that is post is for the final :D so I got that done pretty fast so I just went to town on the car, I kept textureing it and modeling and breaking it into more parts, still nees a few more elements but no ones going to notice when I add them. So, this is more a look at some fun stuff I guess. I'm holding off showing the coolest effects until the end.
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCar_A07.jpghttp://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCar_A08.jpg

[RobertoOrtiz]

FYI:

TWO WEEKS To Go (MAY 22th): FXWARS THE RACE! (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=355539)

-R

[destruct007]

Ok well this is not very similar to the animatic I showed earlier, Burke had to work in Maya on a mac 6.5 I was on 7 pc aaanyway so he worked independent of me with only my reference. We worked together (all his anim tho) to come up with this, I'm happy with it. Burke would keep tweaking it but I need to get some passes rendering. so that said this is what it's going to look like as far as the animation goes. Tonight I'll build back in the scenery trees and such. So check it out, final animatic... (6mbs)

www.agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_B04.avi

He has more shots but I just won't do them not with 2weeks to go. And I don't think I'm sacrificing much, I like this so much more than my initial animation.

[Bonedaddy]

Man, you're right, that new animatic rocks. Looking forward to seeing the final product.


What are the tracks emitting from the camera, though? Is it supposed to be POV out the back of a car?

[mustan9]

Oh my that is extreamly cool. I love the snow being kicked up. You got some skill and style.

[powerdan]

WOW Mr. Schoneveld :eek: ... you're in this VFxWars to!.. OMG!! i have your gnomons Fluids DVD, your animatics looks amazing :thumbsup: i cant wait to see it in Full Render quality :D.

Good Luck.

[destruct007]

thanks guys, ah, but I did have a professional animator do that :D. So it damn well better look good, kidding, I became a team with Burke Roane from Luma, because the comments on my first animatic, made me realise that it would take too much of my time to animate this to the level I (and this forum) wanted, and Burke had basically 2 days of down time in which he could work on it.

What I wanted to get out of this wasn't the animation end. I know that I can animate. I want to learn more about lighting, mental ray, and compositing. Right now I'm learning about optimising Mental ray for memory management so I can render more passes, and faster. I want to learn how to composite all the layers together, like ambitent occulsion, trick pass, reflection, showdow passes and such. I do it at work but normally I don't have as many lighting passes and I don't have to worry about memory managment and BSP stuff. Which is great to learn about huge speed increases! If you have time try to understand as much as you can from this...

http://www.jupiter-jazz.com/wordpress/wp-content/data/tr4kv2/html/chapter4-MEM.html

I've also learned more about the process of fx doing it all. Like story boarding fx. Great addition to my work flow.

So yeah that animation is all Burke. a little of my direction and referenced to what I already had, but all Burke. I should have gotten him earlier, eh?

[mustan9]

Right now I'm learning about optimising Mental ray for memory management so I can render more passes, and faster.

MentalRay is tricky, but I find the default settings that come with Maya and 3D Studio Max aren't any good.

Here are my performance tips.

Samples per pixel:

In 3D Studio Max they rate this as percentages, and in Maya as samples. Either case the rule tents to be the same. Keep your sample range no more then 3 units aparts. The wider the range the long the render will take. I'm not sure why, but it could be that Mental Ray has to perform more samples to see if antialaising is happening when the range is wider. So in Maya something like 0 to 2 is fine, but -2 to 4 is bad. Better off with 2 to 4.

Jitter: Jittering in MentalRay doesn't effect performance, but by default it's turned off in Maya and 3D Studio Max. Turn it on.

Bucket Size: Always work with larger buckets. Something like 64 or 128 can improve performance. Specially if you are using satellites.

Scanline: Some people have told me that they get better performance out of MentalRay with the scanline rendering turned off. This might be true if you have a lot of reflections.

BSP: There is no question that the BSP is the best way to boost performance of MentalRay. Changing these settings directly effects the performance of calculating FG and reflections/refractions. The default BSP depth in 3D Studio Max is 40. When I render my highway with 40 it takes 2 minutes. If I change this value to 1,000 it takes 58 seconds. That is a huge performance boost. What I can figure is that out of the box products like Maya and 3D Studio Max have defaults for people with about 1Gig or less of memory. If you are like me and have lots to spear then boost those BSP settings. I also set the Size (or width) to 2 not 10.

On the other side of the coin. Decreasing these values slows down MentalRay but greatly frees up memory. If you find you are swapping while rendering then lower the BSP settings.

Trace Depth: I always set these values to 2. Anything more is for illustration.

Final Gather

The default method that MentalRay uses to compute the radius of FG rays is to take the size of your whole scene and divid it by 100. So ray width = scene width / 100.

The best tip I can give for controlling the performance of FG is to never allow it to calculate the pixel radius values. Always define the min/max range for FG rays. I usually work with the radius in pixels of 35 to 30. Keep your range narrow (again wide ranges in MentalRay don't give you better performance).

The trace depth for FG should be reduce to 2 for everything. Unless you are rendering a visualization for print, or you have very rich secondary lighting.

Some have told me that setting the falloff range for FG rays can boost performance. It does seem to help, but not by much. It depends a lot on your scene.

The Best Tip for Mental Ray users

MentalRay has to convert all textures into it's native MR texture format (or MAP). It often has to do this on the fly while setting up the scene. One of the problems is that MR will use default settings when doing the conversion.

If you convert your textures to MAP by hand, and turn on the mip-map feature. The texture file will be larger, but rendering will be faster. Since MR doesn't have to perform as much texture anti-aliasing filtering. A mip-map texture is one that has been scaled by 2 several times, and MR can use the best sized texture that has been pre-filtered.

So take the time and convert your TGA, JPG and GIFs to MAP.

The results

By using the same final gathering settings. I was able to render the same image that took 2 minutes in just 1 minute, but making the correct changes to textures, BSP and filtering.

Don't live with the defaults.

:thumbsup:

[destruct007]

thanks for that! You definitely inspired some tests, one of them, I found that adding jitter does create a render hit. 15 seconds to 30. My test was only a torus over a plane tho, with final gather on. Anyway, each thing that you say takes internalizing which is my goal, to see something know why I want to change it which way to try first etc. To understand the settings even better. Each time I do these projects I get better.
Each topic I'm trying to learn more about I do a good amount of reading on. There is SO much and when you think you've found at least all the topics there are more! I like reading what you wrote because it's nice to see things explained again in different words. I feel like I have to read some things tons of times before I really get it. Really get the when, why, what's of it all. Mostly it's all just not that simple, each are work differently in different cases and respond to certain settings, all takes more experience. Thanks again, for your insights.

[DoubleSupercool]

Nice MR tips! I am trying to do more with MR at the moment. One more tip (paraphrased from John A Bell's great book "3ds Max 6 Killer Tips":

If you are losing fine detail like wires, antennas etc, you might want to check out the Contrast settings in the Sampling Quality rollout.

Contrast settings determins how to weight the samples per pixel values. If your fine scene details get chewed away in the rendering it's usually not because your max sampling rates is too low, it's because the contrast settings are too low.

To fix this, keep your existing samples per pixel min/max values within reasonable limits. Increase the contrast values slowly. This trigger the maximum sampling values earlier and should fill in the fine details. The Contrast Spatial settings are primarily used for still renders and the Temporal ones used for animations.

[destruct007]

Man, I'm kind of bummed, My wife reminded me that we're going to NYC this weekend from friday morning to monday evening! ARGH! I'm so annoyed about that. I definitely have to loose the motion blur, which was so key to the look. And even with that gone I'm not sure I can finish. I have all the elements almost complete, I basically have to finish by thursday, maybe can tweak the comp monday night.
I'm debating, finish it the way I want, and take another week, or finish it with compromises to the quality and turn it in on time. I guess it comes down to what I'm in this for. The glory ;) or to learn more. Hmmm. Does anyone know the smallest renderable size one can turn in? I was doing 640x400 but now I think maybe I can get a higher quality if I cut the rez down to like 400x220 or something like that with black bars on top and bottom. I wish I could keep motion blur it so important for the sprites, snow and debris. Even if I cut down the rez I have 3 nights and 3 days to get the rendering finished. Being gone for 2 of the 6 weekends has taken it's toll on my entry. I'm sure I, like everyone here is expecting to do a lot the last weekend. Imagine that gone. Yes it's possible but shoot.
Well I think I'm going to cut down the render size even more, still cut out the motion blur and try to finish by Thursday.

[mustan9]

What do you have to render?
How many frames and how long per frame?
What version of Maya are you running?

[yan]

hehe, we can see we re not alone( i assume many people are in the same way...)
for me i take 2 week in the middle(hic!), and now have sooo many problems to try to finish before the 22...

The glory ;) or to learn more. Hmmm that is the question! :D

[destruct007]

with motion blur the car render is 40 minutes per frame for 200 frames, the background which is almost finished is 20 minutes per frame, but this is all w/o even doing an ambient occlusion, reflection, and shadow pass! Argh, there's no way, Maya 7 PC. well I do have a single core 2.6 with only a gig of ram... the gig of ram is what's killing me. I was going to get a new machine but some money I was waiting on is delayed.
My plan is to do one for the competition and another as the better version, the following week or two. I don't mind, not having the coolest possible entry. It will be looking cool with a little more time. I don't think the rendering is the only issue, if I had a render farm, then no problem, because I can work and render. whatever, maybe this competition will be extended (hint, hint, robert) by a week or two, just to bring an even higher level to it all. Kidding, ah sort of, anyway I'll post a good play blast with debris and the crash online tonight.

[destruct007]

...now it's tonight, check it out one particle pass, the red channel would be turned white in comp the green white, more fade and blured. The other is the crash debris anim test.

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_gndSnow_B12.avi
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashScene_anim_B11.avi

I'm feeling like I'll be able to finish this by thursday, at 640x400 no motion blur. So not a huge compromise but I'm sure everyone is going to make a compromise before the end. I think I'll still work on this after the challenge, might give it a rest for a bit first.

[atzfratz]

woaahh, looks awesome. the crash debris really adds to the already cool animation. Good luck on finishing in time.

[ZippZopp]

nice work there dave! just found this thread. I'll have to keep checking back, it is looking really cool

[CobraX]

Really really cool David!

That looks so promising, nice work for the animation, congrats to your partner and to you! The camera movement is really sweet.

You did a good compromise i think, that does a good impression already, as you'll just need to add motion blur later...

Cheers!

Xavier.

[mustan9]

That does look very cool. I would love to see a sample rendering with motion blur. :) Just so we know what we're missing.

[destruct007]

thanks guys, here's a slap comp w/o the explosion... As you can see there are still some issues to work out. It looks ok, but MR in Maya does hide things that I key the visibility on, so you can see the front of the car still there after the crash. The snow is much to wispy, I imagined it to me more clumpy, also too much white, I'm going to get a sky back ground image. I was also going to add fog and falling snow to the scene, but with me going out of town... prolly not. So this is not far from the final product, I added a low res render frame of the explosion, we'll see how that blends in tonight, with the rest of the scene.

(20m)
http://agentfx.com/fxWars/crashSceneComp_v02.mov

http://agentfx.com/fxWars/rallyCarExplos_A01.jpg

[mustan9]

The motion of the cars, the flip and snow look very good. Wish I could animate like that.

[destruct007]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3429661#post3429661

final is on the first page.

[mustan9]

I'm glad you got it finished!

Looks very cool, and the crash has a good hard impact. I like it.

Well, I'm not sure but I think there will only be a few entries finished for this thing.

Have a good weekend!

[free4all]

Inspirational fluid work! :D I love the explosive nature of it.
Would you mind posting some info about how you achieved it?

I look forward to see the polished version soon.

Tom.

[powerdan]

Wow, i like it, i think you do a very good job in the short time of the project. there is some trouble in the shot (00:00:03.5) the camera go trough the floor, i know, by the quality of your render, that this can't be fixed for the VFXWars, but maybe can for your polished version.

The Crash its Amazing, very Good Animation :thumbsup:

The Particles, in the Snow_Fx and some car parts(in the crash), are good to :thumbsup: (maybe the snow must be a little diferent from the floor, because sometimes the Fx is missed.)

The Explotion... wow!, :eek:.

Congrats!!!

[yan]

hehe yep, excellent one, and for now the only know "finished one".
bad for this week end and the mb, but.. its life! :)
congrat for this good piece of work.

[Escopos]

Nice job on the tiny pieces flying out. Did you actualy model some car parts for the instancing or just made a whole bunch of "thingies" that resemble car parts? I liked it. Congrats! :thumbsup: Hope to be able to get back to mine some day ... :sad:

[Bonedaddy]

Looks awesome. The shot tells a story, and tells it well -- very visceral. Love the crash details, with the hood flying off and the detritus going everywhere. Great stuff. The explosion, of course, is top notch. I'm curious how you shaded the snow particles? I am guessing just hardware rendering, but if you had some special trick, I'd be interested to hear.

[RobertoOrtiz]

FXWARS: OK people talk to me, One more week? (showthread.php?t=360839)

-R

[destruct007]

funny enough I'm going to take out the explosion, I like it w/o. Since we have more time. I actually would have said no to extending the deadline, since I'm in trailer crunch now, however it DOES happen all the time in production so why not here :)
I found this engine and stuck it in the car
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/289688
I then selected all the pieces, deselected any pice that looked too big or so, and the instanced them all. I have like 199 instances of which I gave rand rotation (no += yet since I wanted ti figure out how maya's new collision attrs work) and more importantly I added rand scale. My mistake that I'm going to fix is that the particles should have more initial velocity, the first hit should have more particles flying away from the car. I think that will greatly add to the first impact.
I'm thinking I'll take out the explosion to more show off the crash. the explosion is too big and kind of detracts from the whole crash, I felt before I added it, that it was a painful crash. then after the explosion you disassociate from it because it's fake. Who knows maybe I'll keep a changed version of that, if you can tell my antialiasing was too low on it and the hold out for the tree is all jacked.
powerdan, I did know that the camera did that, I even painted those frames so you don't see underground. I will fix that now, good eye btw since that was only 4 frames, really only one, that you could see.
I'd like to turn the headlights on. give a little fog, and when the crash happens keep one or two lights still one, shooting off in odd directions. I want to add falling snow, a better background, some wind blown ground snow. I also need to better comp this. The white on white is too much it needs color. I may change the car to something more bright. Oh and the ground snow needs tracks and the snow from the tires os waaaay too wispy it needs to be clumpy, the tires are 1/4 of the way under snow and it looks like it's driving on a road with some lightly fallen snow on it.
So the sprites on the snow, yes there is a trick to them :D I take the puff ball fluid example, soften it, take out the keys, add an expression to time, and you have fluid textured particles at 1000% time increase. You can't add rotation so the lighting remains the same, but you can push that effect, more than I did in this even. I didn't cycle through the images, b/c I knew there would be popping and I didn't want to spend the time to make the texture loop-able. So it was that on top of regular multi points, both with motion blur. Oh and they change color, start out red, and as they age become green. Then in comp I blur the green channel so they dissipate.
I guy at work said he might make me a tree texture, so the trees don't have to be white like that. So we'll see.
More spit, more polish, more to come. Thanks for all your great feedback!

[destruct007]

I'm kind of with Matt on this one, I don't think I'm going to have an update for the new deadline, I will add the cover image.

Oh and for those looking for work, I'm working over time these days and we're hireing a jr fx artist, you can check it out on the studios hireing page. Good luck to all enteries

Dave

[zen]

Nice entry! very good work:thumbsup:
I was wondering however about the model that stays back at the initial tree that was hit. I looks like the "clean" version of your car's front end that you forgot or it failed to hide on the collision.

[destruct007]

yes is there, but I didn't forget, it's a mental ray bug, you can key hide something, I even tried key hiding the shape node, but still says behind. I could have painted it out, but I was planning on doing more work to it. Thanks tho for the kind words.

[zen]

painted it out? Wow, thats alot of work, unless you rendered in layers. You could just key it to translate out of frame or something!:)

[destruct007]

actually I think I found the issue, it hide something in mr, you key the miVisible hidden attr. Who knew, I've not yet tested it but will soon. Yeah I did render in layers so I COULD have but still too much work .

[RobertoOrtiz]

Congratz!

http://66.242.144.2/cupFX.gif
-R

[free4all]

Indeed! Well done :)

[daimonos]

Damn good! I love your crash, so realistic! Congrats!daimonos

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