Renders

[Mattn]

you are my personal hero of the day - looks very very cool. some parts could use a faster camera movement, but that can be done with video cut programms.

now the only part left is the start of the fighters and scouts and the UFO:Alien Invasion string at the end. then we can produce a stunning intro for 2.2

thank you very much again sitters.

[sitters]

you are my personal hero of the day - looks very very cool. some parts could use a faster camera movement, but that can be done with video cut programms.

now the only part left is the start of the fighters and scouts and the UFO:Alien Invasion string at the end. then we can produce a stunning intro for 2.2

thank you very much again sitters.

Sorry mattn, but this was not an good one,
I did make the terrible mistake to use an inverse bump-map for the moon.
So I re render the hole thing with an correct bump-map.

The link :

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/render/moon11.xvid.avi

Yea I make more movie clips, the next one is the invasion of the earth from orbit.
And maybe some on earth myself.

Then with all the clips, we can make an complete movie.

Willem

[Sean_E]

Nicely done Sitters.
My only suggestion would be to have the Carriers already moving from behind the moon before the camera gets there and to have them move more quickly to get to Earth.  That way there isn't as much of a pause as the camera waits for them to pass.
You might also want to move the sun source more to the right in the movie.  This way you can see a piece of the waning moon crest instead of just a sliver.  It's hard to tell where you are going till you get there.   

Just out of curiosity, what type of hardware are you rendering on?  To kick out a 3 minute movie like that, it must be some big stuff.

And thanks for the link to the images.  I found a huge earth and moon image (8192x4096). Will use these.

Regards,
Sean E.

[Mattn]

will check the new version. but please also upload the sources

[sitters]

Nicely done Sitters.
My only suggestion would be to have the Carriers already moving from behind the moon before the camera gets there and to have them move more quickly to get to Earth.  That way there isn't as much of a pause as the camera waits for them to pass.
You might also want to move the sun source more to the right in the movie.  This way you can see a piece of the waning moon crest instead of just a sliver.  It's hard to tell where you are going till you get there.   

Just out of curiosity, what type of hardware are you rendering on?  To kick out a 3 minute movie like that, it must be some big stuff.

And thanks for the link to the images.  I found a huge earth and moon image (8192x4096). Will use these.

Regards,
Sean E.

Thanks,
The hardware i use is 3.6 GHz Pentium 4, dual processors with 2GB intern memory, 2x400 GB harddrive.
For rendering, I use both processors same time on the software Cinema 4D 10.5

but for 2500 renders hires still 35-38  minutes render-time.

Mattn : best for all the clips I pack all sources in one file ( textures are the same ), so when I have the invasion clip, i make an link.


Willem

[Sean_E]

Nice setup.
Myself, I am using three workstations working together:
1 AMD Turion 64x2 @ 1.6ghz
1 AMD Athlon 64 @ 1.8ghz
1 AMD Athlon 64 @ 2.0 ghz

The laptop is connected on the network by wifi and is the primary workstation.
Software used is 3D Studio Max 2008 32-bit.

My 12-second rotation animation took almost 2 hours to do.
I am thinking I am using a higher resolution output with my mental ray settings as to why mine is taking a lot longer.  I'll have to hook the laptop up via hardline and see if its the same.

Regards,
Sean E

[Winter]

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/render/moon11.xvid.avi

Willem

That is bloody brilliant. The sweeping pans are amazing. There are only a few suggestions I could make here:

1) The parts where travelling from the Earth to the moon and back are a bit long and end up dragging, could you make the camera speed up more during these bits? This would also help the feeling of travelling across a vast distance.

2) The Carriers end up looking strangely flat as the camera passes them, almost two-dimensional. Is anything odd about them? I may be wrong here, so if I am just ignore this comment.

3) I think it would look better if the Carriers were spread out a bit more, and less synchronous/equidistant with each other. Ships this big are not meant for perfect formation flying. Try and break it up a little.

4) Possibility: Add a shot of the Carriers jumping in on the dark side of the moon, flashes of light from the wormhole briefly falling over them, after which they are only deeper shadows moving in the black -- until they crest the moon and sunlight hits them for the first time, revealing them to the player. That would look very intimidating.

Regards,
Winter

[Sean_E]

Okay, reset my scene to proper scale and distance.  Here are two of the better renders:





Critiques are welcome.
I did figure out that the textures on the carrier are light sensitive.  They will not show unless there is light shined upon them.
Looks like I am going to have to redo the model and textures so that my renderer can handle it better and I don't have lights all over the place.

Regards,
Sean E

[Psawhn]

BTW: here an link to the carrier psawhn, if you also like to play with rendering.
Willem

Thanks a lot! Do you have a version of the texture with the glowing parts isolated? Setting those to be light-emitting (not CPU-sucking radiosity, but just independent of any light sources) would look really cool with realistic dark (or pitch-black) shadows found in space.

Oh, Winter, how partial are you to a sequence that looks more documentary-ish, from a space satellite picking up a flight of carriers jumping into LEO? I was also thinking more along the lines of a BSG-like flash (but different and brighter!) representing a volumetric/spherical wormhole needed to transport larger ships. (I was thinking a capacitor-like buildup would allow the energies needed to open a rift large enough to send the massive carriers through, without needing the immense power requirements that could only be satisfied by the mothership.)

Or maybe I should render one out anyways?

[Mattn]

Sean_E: the carrier is not moving like this - it's moving like in sitters sequences

[Psawhn]

Actually, here's a couple tests just separating the 'loudest' pure red, blue, and green colours from the image using Blender's compositing tools. (Typically used for taking out green screens, but seems to work just as well for this)





This is an extreme example - most space scenes have a bit of ambient light, (which might be explained by a nearby planet or moon), plus stars and that . Also, the emitting surfaces were very crudely separated. I could try to spend more time, allowing more accurate areas and softer edges (plus things like the red reflections at the top.)

Still, notice the difference in the dark areas of the ship.  I can't think of the proper words for whatever it bring to an image, but it does do something positive.

[Winter]

Oh, Winter, how partial are you to a sequence that looks more documentary-ish, from a space satellite picking up a flight of carriers jumping into LEO? I was also thinking more along the lines of a BSG-like flash (but different and brighter!) representing a volumetric/spherical wormhole needed to transport larger ships. (I was thinking a capacitor-like buildup would allow the energies needed to open a rift large enough to send the massive carriers through, without needing the immense power requirements that could only be satisfied by the mothership.)

Have a look on the wiki at the research article 'Alien Origins'. If we get to be able to play videos in the UFOpaedia, it would fit perfectly.

We may have to adjust the distances cited in the article to fit, but that's no problem at all.

And having such a video would, I'm sure, convince our coders to implement it . . .

Okay, reset my scene to proper scale and distance.  Here are two of the better renders:

Critiques are welcome.

Regards,
Sean E

I think #1 looks far more dramatic than #2, with Earth hovering unsuspecting in the background. Very very nice indeed. I think their position relative to the camera is actually forgiveable in this instance, it probably looks better than simply looking at the engines (although that would be pretty dramatic in its own right . . .). I'm just thinking that we'll be looking mostly at the engines anyway.

Here's an idea that might make a nice render: Camera set close between a pair of Fighters, just behind the engines. The fuselages take up most of the right and left halves of the screen, but in the centre we see a big view of Earth, close by and getting closer . . .

Regards,
Winter

[Mattn]

Here's an idea that might make a nice render: Camera set close between a pair of Fighters, just behind the engines. The fuselages take up most of the right and left halves of the screen, but in the centre we see a big view of Earth, close by and getting closer . . .

fading out after a few seconds and the UFO: Alien Invasion string appears

[Winter]

fading out after a few seconds and the UFO: Alien Invasion string appears

I was thinking of it as a still, but yeah, that could work -- with shakycam if possible.

Regards,
Winter

[BTAxis]

I was thinking of it as a still, but yeah, that could work -- with shakycam if possible.

I really hate it when people use that. Just have a look at the new BSG series. It's impossible to watch it comfortably because the camera bounces all over the damn place.