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Psawhn:
Actually, Winter, if you want to be "really" accurate with the turnover, it would take several hours to complete the transition from the Moon to the Earth even at 1g acceleration. In an overly simplified calculation, ignoring gravity and orbital velocities, starting and stopping from zero speed, we get these figures for an Earth-Moon transition.
0.3g: 12 hours
0.5g: 9.3 hours
1g: 6.5 hours
2g: 4.6 hours
4g: 3.3 hours
16g: 1.6 hours
200g: 27 minutes
800g: 14 minutes
10000g: 4 minutes
Sitters' animation falls under the 4-minutes category, but I doubt even the incredible antimatter drives can pump out the bone-liquefying acceleration of 98100m/s^2 ;).
Of course, the best way to present these would be to cut between different shots of the carriers at different points of their travel. :)
And in other news: I'm somewhat an idiot. For the simple shot of a space telescope observing a Carrier's in-jump, I had it all set up with planetary atmospheres and overexposure and stuff, wasting time without actually getting any important bits of the animation done. /Thwack Self
Winter:
--- Quote from: Psawhn on December 09, 2007, 07:40:01 pm ---Actually, Winter, if you want to be "really" accurate with the turnover, it would take several hours to complete the transition from the Moon to the Earth even at 1g acceleration. In an overly simplified calculation, ignoring gravity and orbital velocities, starting and stopping from zero speed, we get these figures for an Earth-Moon transition.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I know. I think of the animation as using time-compression (at least in places), as I wouldn't want the intro to go on for hours. :P
--- Quote ---Of course, the best way to present these would be to cut between different shots of the carriers at different points of their travel. :)
--- End quote ---
Agreed, that's what I'd prefer, but sitters is making the vid, not I. No vid-making skills here.
--- Quote ---And in other news: I'm somewhat an idiot. For the simple shot of a space telescope observing a Carrier's in-jump, I had it all set up with planetary atmospheres and overexposure and stuff, wasting time without actually getting any important bits of the animation done. /Thwack Self
--- End quote ---
Well, you're not on a time limit. Just try not to let yourself get too carried away. ;)
Regards,
Winter
Psawhn:
Actually, cutting the video up into several shots would also cut down on rendering times. You'd only have to re-render parts of animation, and the overall length could also be cut down. I also render to multiple image files - sometimes you'd only have to re-render a matter of frames.
Oh, I'll also plug Blender's sequence editor here for vid-making from existing video/image files. It's capable, plus the only thing it costs is a bit of time to learn. ;)
And the thing's rendering right now. It'll be done in the morning and if it (hopefully! :-\) looks okay I'll post an xvid of it. A lot of the effects I've wasted time on worked on won't be in the video, namely Earth (plus its atmosphere) and post-processed overexposure.
But it does include shakeycam as applied to a gyroscopically-controlled orbiting telescope. :)
Edit: Done
Here's the initial draft. https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/final_anim10001_0325.avi
There are a few things I'd want to fix. One of the biggest is that the shot passes in front of the moon, but I forgot to turn the moon on. (Oops). I could probably extend the shot of the engines burning for several seconds. I also think the pace is much too fast. And I also meant to have an initial movement of the camera (search mode.)
Winter:
--- Quote from: Psawhn on December 10, 2007, 07:45:55 am ---Actually, cutting the video up into several shots would also cut down on rendering times. You'd only have to re-render parts of animation, and the overall length could also be cut down. I also render to multiple image files - sometimes you'd only have to re-render a matter of frames.
Oh, I'll also plug Blender's sequence editor here for vid-making from existing video/image files. It's capable, plus the only thing it costs is a bit of time to learn. ;)
And the thing's rendering right now. It'll be done in the morning and if it (hopefully! :-\) looks okay I'll post an xvid of it. A lot of the effects I've wasted time on worked on won't be in the video, namely Earth (plus its atmosphere) and post-processed overexposure.
But it does include shakeycam as applied to a gyroscopically-controlled orbiting telescope. :)
Edit: Done
Here's the initial draft. https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/final_anim10001_0325.avi
There are a few things I'd want to fix. One of the biggest is that the shot passes in front of the moon, but I forgot to turn the moon on. (Oops). I could probably extend the shot of the engines burning for several seconds. I also think the pace is much too fast. And I also meant to have an initial movement of the camera (search mode.)
--- End quote ---
To be honest with you, it looks a bit weird currently -- images captured by a space telescope being in that resolution, especially at that range, and the telescope moving to track the UFO?
What I'd prefer to see rather than a 'search mode' opening is the same clip, first played at a very large distance at a stupidly wide-angled resolution (featuring both Earth in the corner and the moon, and maybe Mars in the background somewhere) so the Carrier is only a small coloured blob in the distance. Then the clip restarts with a blinky zooming-in box over the place where the Carrier arrives, and then it plays out as it does now. This would be (in my humble opinion) more visually impressive, more representative of the power of a 2084-era space telescope, and makes the slow camera a part of the zooming-in effect and therefore more plausible.
One last comment: blue propellant exhaust doesn't really fit the Carrier, as we've used green exhaust everywhere else, and the really long exhaust trail doesn't match up with the other images of the Carrier so far. A trail that long implies ridiculously high acceleration when this thing should ideally come across as a slow, lumbering beast among UFOs.
Regards,
Winter
Psawhn:
I agree with you that it seems off. I figured it had an onboard computer set to focus on and track anything not predicted in the database. I figured it was that or have the carrier be only several dozen pixels large - though that might work neat with artificial zooming showing a grainy picture.
I never would have thought of splitting up the shot into two passes - that should work really well.
Technically, a long exhaust trail means high efficiency, rather than high thrust, but I see what you mean. I've toned it down, and changed the colour to whitish-green. I don't like the idea of the carrier riding on a soft, fluffy green cushion, though, so I'll try to find a balance.
Edit: Okay, rendered out.
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/MIMIR_Jump_Final30001_0850.avi
It's fun when you set something to render overnight, then when you get back you immediately see several things wrong with it. ::)
-Stars don't move properly for the second 'zoomed in' pass. This is because I used a different method of tracking for the second 'zoomed in' camera. I had to use two cameras because Blender doesn't allow cameras to zoom in far enough.
This is why the carrier's movement seems so erratic - it's actually moving properly, but the stars in the background are what's moving erratically. :-\
-You can barely see anything of the carrier in the first pass. The two ways to fix it are either to zoom in (thus clipping off the Earth to the left) or to move the carrier closer to the Earth.
-The Earth is pure white. For some reason, whenever the camera isn't looking directly at the Earth the atmosphere turns really really bright. I can pan the camera out from the Earth to show that there actually is stuff beneath (and the thing actually orbits the Earth, too), or try to reduce the glare, or just leave it as it is as a stylistic choice showing overexposure. (The Hubble telescope doesn't point anywhere near the Earth, Moon, or Sun to avoid damaging its optics.)
I also haven't added the post-pro zooming effect yet, either. These are just the 'raw' passes (plus compositor post-pro for effects).
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