AM to Lightwave pipeline

#41

Thanks Martin. The bells and whistles like HDRI, SSS, etc… I won’t be needing for this project but it’s nice to know they’re there. My biggest concern is speed & quality. Right now, my biggest scene is taking about 30 minutes per frame at 1280x720 on my 2GHz Athlon. If I use multipass to get silky smooth anti-aliasing, that time jumps to over an hour per frame! I’ll three machine render farm but that’s still just way to slow.

And if LW is fast enough I might even render at 1920x1080! :eek:

Thanks,

J

#42

30 minutes a frame at that resolution is VERY good. In the production we are working on at the moment they have set asside funds for 4 hours a frame. And that is only at D1. And we are STILL getting crappy artifacts and shimmers using the latest Lightwave with all the ge-wiz plugins. Stick with what you know dude. Or go all out and spend 20k and 5 years learning the BEST solution. AM->Max->Mental Ray is starting to really really tempt me. Especially if I can see someone provide some tests on this AM->.mdd solution. Lets see putty dude walk in Lightwave! Anyone!?!

#43

Hey Wegg! So, it’s just as fast now, eh? Good to know. I’m still using 10.5, do you know if the latest version is any quicker?

“they both suck in different ways” Ha! I remember trying to do chacter work with LW in college… now that sucked!

Thanks for the info! I’m not interested in going to Renderman or anything fancy. This is just for a personal project and I’m all about speeding up render times.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5309&hl=dysthymia

Also, having a better way to put together shaders would be nice too, but I think I’ve figured out how to make A:M do enough of what I want to make things work.

Thanks!

J

#44

4 hours at D1?! Really? At work (Turner Studios) we’re using the standard Maya renderer and we’ve done some pretty big stuff… I can’t remember anything taking longer than 30 minutes per frame, even at 1920x1080.

Hmm…

#45

AM’s shaders are better than Lightwave’s. . . the only advantage Lightwave has over AM is those “fancy” things that were mentioned earlier. SSS, HDRI etc. Not really deal breakers in my mind. Neither app does Displaement like Messiah’s or Rendermans. . .

I love your signature BTW. Rock concert movement #3 is a funny. “Jump up in the air. . . now. . . come back down to the ground. . . repeate. . . ready go!”

#46

Okay Wegg, you’re right. This was only, because I’m LightWave brainwashed,working in a LightWave>Maya>LightWave pipeline every day. The wish was always to do it in A:M…and I have some LightWave picture too which would fit well to the one you’ve posted.
The main problem is that these artifacts could occur …suddenly. One frame in 1000 frames.
You spent hours on work arounds and other things…you fixed…and the next artifact say hello

As Martin Hash says in the chat last week…only two will survive Maya and A:M…

Martin
cybersign

#47

Ahhh… real displacement would be awesome! Guess I’ll have to make due with what A:M can do for now.

I saw Blue Man Group in New York 4 or 5 years ago and have been a huge fan ever since. I haven’t been out to see their LasVegas show yet though.

Okay. I suppose I should leave this thread alone and let it get back on topic.

Thanks again for the info Wegg!

J

#48

Well I don’t agree with Martin on that one. I think Max’s entrenchment in the gaming industry will keep it around much longer than Maya. There is FAR more money in games than for film and televison. Notice how Max’s price tag just stays the same while everyone else is taking a nose dive? And Maya’s renderer. . . is poo. Mental Ray was the only way they could bring respect into the picture and have you ever tried to price out a 20 machine renderfarm with Mental? Pretty damn shocking.

In my mind it will be one of these new upstarts that really shakes things up. No legacy tools to keep trying to support. Luxology or PMG. . . something like that. Maybe even AM?

#49

All the more reason to look into XSI. Its built around MR + each version includes additional MR render nodes. I think Advanced comes with 9 of them.

Too bad Alias isn’t that generous :stuck_out_tongue:

#50

I agree that not only two companies will survive, but I remeber discussions years ago when the major companies were sure that only big companies will stay for longer…and see the results. More and more 3d companies (software developer) come out and grow and grow…

So it will be very interesting to see which companies build their strategies today for the future. Will they concentrate only technical features or are there some that will have an eye on the GUI and the ease-of-use.

Martin
cybersign

#51

What I personally hope happens. . . is that there will be one or two interchange formats. . . and that it really won’t matter WHAT you use. It is already going that direction. With .mdd, Darktree etc. Very cool. On a level playing field I have always fealt that AM’s streangths would shine through. Very cool times ahead.

#52

Hey Wegg! Its always great to hear from you!:thumbsup: I dont hink its just going to be two apps am and maya. Damn that would be boring. Max is here to stay and modo and silo3d are really cool to. But Martin did say he is adding hdr to AM in v12!:buttrock: But he did say something weirdo when he said that the render will be static. Why the hell would he want that especially that hes adding hdr? Weird. But I think Martin is rocking with AM and Im loving it!:applause:

#53

well, personally I have never seen a render come out of AM come close to LW/Mental Ray/Renderman as far as pure quality is concerned. Forget the feature list, look at the results. Why are there so many people creating stunning images with LW? Probably because its easy to get the most out of and has a world class rendering engine. Comparing it to Mental Ray and Renderman is silly cos they are in a totally different league as far as flexibility and depth, thats what you pay for.

Anyway, it appears that you can now take your AM animation into any of these renderers now so rejoice! :slight_smile: If anyone can export an object sequence for me I can show you it imported into Maya.

Pray that not only two survive, having options is the best part. :wink:

Mark

#54

I would beg to differ on the quality. Just look at our little CGTalk gallery. In the right hands Animation Master’s renderer can acheive results equal to those Lightwave is able to produce. Especially now with the new Multipass renderer. Your plugin. . . like you said. . . now adds choice. Something Animation Master users never had before. Thank you.

#55

Back again to this thread, after hollidays under the Sun :slight_smile:

This thread was originally started to study the ways to import the work done in A:M into LW. When I mean work, I was thinking about animation (mesh, camera, lights, nulls, animations). When all elements will be loaded into LW, then it will be time to choose your render engine, but I think that is another problem. And although I really think interesting to exchange ideas about the rendering engine of AM, this is not the topic of this thread.

  1. I like the rendering engine of AM. Personnally, I never written that I dislike AM and that I would not render anymore in AM. But many people and friends of mine have no abilities in 3d modeling. They want to animate but there are so few characters ready to animate for AM that there is no chance for them. This AM to LW pipeline discussion is one hope for them.

  2. Everyone knows that importing pre-made polygons models into AM causes many problems (spline continuity, creases and so on…) even with full quads polygons models. Some tips and tricks help to reduce theses problems but it always remains some work to do in the modeling room of AM. The import of polygon models (known as 3ds props), by the way not limited to 3ds, causes artifacts in AM’s rendering engine. Theses occur for example just when moving a simple camera between the two sides of a San-Francisco-like bridge, when a camera flys from one room to another to explore an apartment, even when the camera is flying around the Effeil Tower (and in this case, the camera is not inside the polygon structure). Considering 1 and 2, there are no chance for a non professionnal user (doing CG animation for its pleasure) to get his dream becoming reality. The professionnal have to take into account many other elements…

  3. But helping non professional users is not the only goal I was in mind when firering this AM2LW pipeline sudy. If all goes well, I would have soon a great job with responsabilities in a company that makes Medical Learning Products. This company has money (due to pharmaceuticals investissments), has ALL the great 3D packages (LW, Max, Maya, Softimage, and renderers) and the guys to work with, has even made its own 3d render engine. But for many reasons (…OT) the software of choice has becoming MAX. And all people say that having productive work with MAX is a nightmare (that is professionnal testimony). Using AM for many years, I would have oppposite testimony for AM, and many of us here think the same. I don’t have MAX but LW. So, an AM2LW pipeline is way to get work done in AM into Max (with th help of Mark’s plugins).

  4. Finally, in every thread of every forum for every software, posts are partisan. I really LOVE AM, but sorry, some things cannot be done with it. As a medical doctor, I often have to show Red blood cell animation into arteries or veins. The particle system of AM does not allow a model to be a particle (in others packages its possible). The particle system of AM does not allow to control the trajectory of particle (I mean a real control, not using defelectors, wind and so on…) and I do not mention the detection of collision between particles… There are many others examples like this. Martin Hash himself has in mind to integrate HDR into the next AM edition, good idea ! Hope this will be the case for normal mapping too ! :slight_smile:

As a professionnal I use AM A LOT, but I encounters problems that are not solved for years and the lack of some features in AM drives me towards others apps (LW in my case). I do not want to criticize some choices or others of AM’s Developpment Team. The work done in the animation workflow in AM is amazing. I want to use it. But when encountering problems why not using other pakages to complete AM ?

Best regards,

Alain

#56

Ok every 3d application has a weak and strong point
i though everybody is already know …( if u like application A … let use A ) :applause:
( if u like application B … let use B ) :thumbsup:
but now we talk about a pipeline from AM to LW or may Be AM to other render?
Why ? Because we need the best way (FAST& Cheap As Possible) to finish our work ontime and make our Boss(Client or yourself) happy

So … let continue this thread in the topic " pipeline from AM to LW (or may Be AM to other render?)

i use AM for a longtime and love the way of AM(easy for animation and can afford)
but When i have to deal with Obj that is not and oganic form (house ,building…)
i have to switch to other application…it is not AM can not do that job but i will
take a long time to finish. So i do character in AM and compose character to Bg by AfterEffect and render bg whit other application. this is the solution that i have today

if some people have the easy way for help our work fast and Cheap … Pls Continue

Lee :applause:

#57

100 % agree with you cyberspark :slight_smile:

we talk about a pipeline from AM to LW or may Be AM to other render?

Looking at the first tests I’ve done, the AM2LW generates LWS (7.5) that are full loaded into Cinema4D. Mark’s mdd compiler is not available for C4D but the EPLA generator does almost the same job from an .obj sequence : EPLA for Cinema4D .
I don’t know if Maya or others can load LWS file. If it is the case, AM2LW + Mark’s PointOven maybe could be a way to enlarge the pipeline (all of this are pure supposition, nothing has been tested for now). But Cinema4D users would certainly have almost the same benefits as LW users for now.

So i do character in AM and compose character to Bg by AfterEffect and render bg whit other application. this is the solution that i have today

With the help of z-buffering channel (and the alpha one), That is indeed the only way I know to get some result. But Michael Fitzgerald recently reported an apparently esay way to get movements of cameras & Lights into Electric Image : Thread on Hash official forum I’d be pleased to see some samples :bounce:

Regards,

Alain :slight_smile:

#58

How about AM to blender…/?
Has any one Blender yet?

#59

Any new news? After reading through all these posts I think its just way much work to get AM to LW. I think Im going to break down and get LW. Maybe just model humans in AM since its easier then use Wings3d to get that model into LW. Animation can be done with messiah I guess.

#60

Forgot didnt Wegg have a video that showed how to get AM stuff to LW? Can you stil lbuy that and is it useful with the new changes in AM and LW?