Steampunk Myths and Legends Entry: Nico Strobbe

#101

So, i finally got my creature’s rig done, and did a pose.
But this got me into another problem. Rendering!

For the same pose at a res of 1024 x 500 pixels with NO final gather, maya on OSX (32bit) took about 55 minutes and 22 seconds.
I did the same scene in windows on a 64bit maya and a render of 2048 x 1000 pixels WITH final gather turned on took about 1 minute and 15 seconds.

Go fingure.
Seems for complex scenes that 64 does matter.
So, i’m gonna do all work for animation now on osx and switch back to win for rendering. Let’s hope i’ll make it intime.

cheers

#102

Hey Dennis, thanks a lot and i don’t think there will be a scene where he’s scratching his own ass :scream:

i tried to make the other character scratch his nek with his back foot, but it’s rather hard. So i didn’t do that.

cheers

#103

That’s one mean-looking robot. Great texturing! Can’t wait to see it in motion!

#104

Hey Adam, thanks a lot!

At the moment i have most of my animation. And the creature looks very sweet in motion. Since i’m very short on time i don’t know if i’ll take the time to cut my previews together to show the result.
The animation could be much better, but it’s my second animation i’m doing and the first was many years ago just to try it. And not to mention i don’t have the professional rig cause i rigged it myself.
But overall i’m not too disappointed.

Let’s hope i make the finish line in time!

cheers

#105

[color=white]Good luck! Your works look very good. [/color]

#106

Looking good Nico can’t wait to see this move.

#107

Thanks Guning and DogBreath!

i’m really hard at work right now to get ready for setting up the rendering. I had a little playblast but already changed some animations details, and added another scene. But i’m not gonna put any time into trying to upload it. It’s just not worth it.

Let’s hope i make the deadline.

#108

:slight_smile: very nice modeling and textures :slight_smile:

#109

Thanks monart, wait till you see it all together!

At the moment i am ready to start getting into setting up my renders and hoping i can start some. I have lost a lot of time due that maya 2009 has what seems a bug with the parti_volume that is needed for some good volume fog and ray effects. But luckily i found a work around.

The quality just wouldn’t have been the same without that.

#110

And here is the first piece i show you about the indoor. It’s way much simpler than i first had in my mind, but hey, time is closing in.

And so i show you i’m not dead … yet!
Soon i’ll set up the fog and test the rendering with the characters. Then i’ll set up the rendering passes so i’ll have much freedom in getting the style i really want. Cause this render is waaaaayyyy too softy.

cheers all

#111

I’m glad you still alive nico :stuck_out_tongue:
Looking nice, I hope the render won’t take much time! How long will be the animation?

#112

Hey Arnaud!

I’m not sure how long the animation is. I think i have around 50 seconds of animation, while i still have no animation yet for the exterior. And for the full video there should be a little slo-mo clip inbetween so not really sure.

At the moment the computer is rendering so heavy that i can’t really do much else. I have completed the rendering of my first 4 seconds and now i’m almost up to another 4 seconds for the next shot. So it’s really slow. But rendering was first around 2 minutes or lower, and for some reason this sequence is around 3 minutes.
Now i should still make it to the deadline, but the problem is that i can’t really do anything else. In osX i am able to work in other apps at a very comfortable speed, but this windows vista sucks so much, that it takes up to a few seconds to open a lousy 640x480 image.
Otherwise i could have been busy doing compositing and stuff.

Really annoying.
But anyway, the result looks way better then i expected at first. But i still don’t even have ambient occlusion or my fog layer. So let’s hope there is time to still do that. Not really in need fot the AO but would love the fog.

cheers all and thumbs up.

#113

So,
to make the movie make a little more pro, i did a logo while the rendering took away all resources to be able to make any more.
At the moment the rendered stuff i have look very great and i so want to finish this one.
I will drop the fog layer (don’t even think it would make it look any better, but would make it look scaryer) and not sure if i will get around of doing a AO pass.
The rendering for the biggest shot just got higher and higher which means i could be still rendering by the end of monday. Bu i so hope not.
I still have to set up the scene for the outdoor rendering, that also needs a very subtle camera move, and also the setup for the render passes. Cause i know that this scene will look like crap when it’s rendered out. I also hope that it will render really fast cause otherwise i will be forced to drop this frame.

So, this is one of the last updates and ifo to let ya’ll know this is a huge hit or miss. Can’t show you any more cause it’s not composited yet and the computer is way too slow to do something else. I so much hate windows for this. Thanks a lot microcrap! Apple should show you how it’s done.

#114

Hey Nico, I feel your pain!

I too have only one 32bit machine on which to get everything done and at the moment it’s not playing nicely!

Best of luck finishing, your entry is one I’m really looking forward to seeing:thumbsup:

#115

Software: Maya

Frank of the FrankAndSteam company is a robot spending late night time building creations from various parts and trying to get them to life.
One foggy night he wakes his creation after adding the last important piece and not knowing what the creature will be like.

Play Video >>

#116

Well, i sure do wanna know if anyone got closer to the deadline then me ?! I got a 3 hours and 15 minutes left.

But now i’m gonna say something about the video, cause i don’t think anyone has seen these things yet. The main reason is because they were done in a short period of time.
So i think the video sucks but i do like the separate shots.
There does seem to be some issues with the animation, but hey, i’m not an animator and this is the very first real animation i did. Not to mention i had to animate my own rig and i’m not a rigger.

The time for rendering was way too short so i had to cut back on quality en therefore there are some final gathering issues and a low aliasing that bothers me so much.
These last 18 hours, i’ve done all the compositing (and rendering of zdepth passes), i’ve edited all the shots together, then i added the sound (and i think it’s horrible), put the video’s together and i even forgot to say i also did the graphics. So this is just way too little time to do any of these any good. I spend most time on compositing and have to say, i like compositing.

So i also hope you forgive me for the poor quality, the lack of necessary attention to parts of the video, and sorry for the louse making off.

Cheers all and i really need some rest now.

#117

Hey, glead you make it! Very nice entry,nice designs and the mood is so good!Best to you!

#118

Really good entry! I like your models, they have a very unique style!:applause:
Btw. We managed to get even closer to the deadline… actually only 5 min.
I wonder if anyone can beat that… :curious:
To be honest we really thought we could submit much earlier…
but i guess you know how these things mostly turn out to be… :smiley:

#119

Nice final !

I like it. And I’m glad you finished :slight_smile: Good luck…

#120

Great movie!!

Very nice style! We had the same problems with our movie. We wish we could have more time to fix a lot of problems but the deadline was our priority!! Actually we had a problem with the uploader and we almost miss it!!

Good luckl!!