Renders

[sitters]

Make an small movie clip, with some sound.
But I don't have an good sound for an space ship, i make one myself.

If you don't like it you can rip the sound of it.


http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon4.avi


Willem

[freegamer]

Make an small movie clip, with some sound.
But I don't have an good sound for an space ship, i make one myself.

If you don't like it you can rip the sound of it.


http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon4.avi

You do know the ships clip the moon and, well, look rather sillily large when doing so.

[Mattn]

looks cool - but yes, they are flying through the moon

[Destructavator]

In general, I'd like to say that these motion video clips look rather nice - Sitters, would it be OK with you if I were to borrow segments of these at a later date, when 2.2 comes out, to combine with recorded gameplay and one of the soundtracks for a 2.2 promo trailer?  I enjoyed making the old 2.1 trailer, but back when I created it I didn't have any animations to work with other than recorded clips of gameplay I made.

I was thinking that for a 2.2 promo there could be a video that jumps between animations such as these and clips of gameplay.  You would get a better idea of what I'm envisioning when 2.2 comes out and when I could start working on a new trailer video.  I have a number of different non-linear digital video editing packages that could do the job, complete with various special FX and transitions.

Actually, if the project at this point is not adding much more for new features and is simply bug-hunting for 2.2, I could probably start working on a promo sooner and possibly have it out by the time a stable 2.2 is released.

(Sorry if I strayed off-topic.)

[Winter]

Make an small movie clip, with some sound.
But I don't have an good sound for an space ship, i make one myself.

If you don't like it you can rip the sound of it.


http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon4.avi


Willem

First off, I agree with mattn and others, they need to be a lot more distant from the moon in order to be believable, as the carriers are only a few hundred metres in diameter.

Second, this would be so awesome as part of an intro cinematic, perhaps tacked on before the start of the script we've already got. So it would run something like this:

1) View of Earth from space, filling up the screen. Camera slowly pans away to focus on the moon, where the carriers come in and do their fly-by. Whole scene is silent, only music playing.

2) Last Carrier disappears off below the camera. Cut to a view of the launch bay sending out a UFO (Scout or Fighter), which the camera follows towards Earth at breakneck speeds. Still totally silent, music only.

3) Cut to a static wing-mounted view of the UFO, looking straight at the cockpit from the wing. Little wisps of atmosphere start to come in, and the UFO heats up slightly. The camera starts to shake more and more violently. A roar of wind slowly fades in as the atmosphere thickens, growing louder and louder, the only sound in the world.

4) The camera stops suddenly at a fixed point above a large city, watching the UFO fly away, tracking it as it flies over the city. Fade out as UFO starts to turn.

5) Cut to original intro script (alien walking towards burning city).

Slightly beyond our capabilities right now, but damn would it be cool.

Regards,
Winter

[sitters]

Damn winter, I am not an movie producer.
Thats a week rendering time.

I make more short clips, then it can be composed to an movie by Destructavator.

Here I have corrected the clipping of the moon.

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon5.avi


Willem

[Winter]

Damn winter, I am not an movie producer.
Thats a week rendering time.

I make more short clips, then it can be composed to an movie by Destructavator.

Here I have corrected the clipping of the moon.

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon5.avi


Willem

Only ideas, mate, only ideas.

But give me a professional animation team and I'll rock your damned socks off!

Regards,
Winter

[Winter]

Damn winter, I am not an movie producer.
Thats a week rendering time.

I make more short clips, then it can be composed to an movie by Destructavator.

Here I have corrected the clipping of the moon.

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/Models2/moon5.avi


Willem

This is near-perfect. The only thing I can still comment on is the conflict between the UFO shadows and the lighting of the moon. In order for the shadows to fall on the moon the way they do, the bottom half of the moon would have to be in complete shadow. A bit like so, only better drawn:



Regards,
Winter

[sitters]

The light cant be wrong, because i uses one parallel light, for the moon and the carriers.

It is just where the light is ( or sun ), and when I place it the way you like then the carriers are barely lighted, only from beside.
The moon is an sphere, and catching a lot of light, but the carrier is relative small.

Willem


And with this (But give me a professional animation team and I'll rock your damned socks off!) then the animation team is rocking your socks of.
We all know, how the good SciFi movies, with good specials looks.

[Winter]

The light cant be wrong, because i uses one parallel light, for the moon and the carriers.

It is just where the light is ( or sun ), and when I place it the way you like then the carriers are barely lighted, only from beside.
The moon is an sphere, and catching a lot of light, but the carrier is relative small.

Willem

It is actually wrong, not because of any fault on your part, but because light works differently when the light source is 147 million kilometres away. The way it is now, the light appears to be coming from both directly ahead of the carriers and from directly above. If it was accurately modelled with the sun in the same direction as suggested by the shading on the moon, then the Carrier shadows wouldn't show up at the very top of the moon, but some way down it several seconds after the Carriers pass the moon.

Regards,
Winter

[Destructavator]

Considering scale, it was mentioned that the carriers are only a few hundred meters in diameter - Considering the size of a typical moon large enough to form into a sphere like that from enough mass and gravity, and have lots of craters, wouldn't the shadows also be only a few hundred meters in diameter and therefore be so small in comparison that a viewer in space would see no shadow at all on the moon?

Think about this - I live close to an airport, and once in a while I see an aircraft pass overhead and for a split second can see a shadow from it zip across the ground.  When I see this, the shadow is about the same size as the aircraft.  (The sun is very far away by comparison.)

In these video clips the shadow is being amplified to a much larger scale because I'm guessing the virtual light source is much closer.  It makes it look like the moon would only be several alien ship lengths across.  To be more realistic, I'd think the shadows would be so tiny compared to the size of the moon that they wouldn't be seen at all.

Therefore, to be realistic, the ships shouldn't have any shadow at all on the moon, only on each other (If one ship is in front of another nearby one).

Does this make sense?

At least consider this - If a manmade satellite passes overhead, does it cast a huge shadow the size of France moving across the Earth?  (And we have launched zillions of them up there now, from various countries.)

[Destructavator]

Second, this would be so awesome as part of an intro cinematic, perhaps tacked on before the start of the script we've already got. So it would run something like this:

1) View of Earth from space, filling up the screen. Camera slowly pans away to focus on the moon, where the carriers come in and do their fly-by. Whole scene is silent, only music playing.

2) Last Carrier disappears off below the camera. Cut to a view of the launch bay sending out a UFO (Scout or Fighter), which the camera follows towards Earth at breakneck speeds. Still totally silent, music only.

3) Cut to a static wing-mounted view of the UFO, looking straight at the cockpit from the wing. Little wisps of atmosphere start to come in, and the UFO heats up slightly. The camera starts to shake more and more violently. A roar of wind slowly fades in as the atmosphere thickens, growing louder and louder, the only sound in the world.

4) The camera stops suddenly at a fixed point above a large city, watching the UFO fly away, tracking it as it flies over the city. Fade out as UFO starts to turn.

5) Cut to original intro script (alien walking towards burning city).

Thats a week rendering time.

I make more short clips, then it can be composed to an movie by Destructavator.

Actually, much of this really is possible; if sitters can build all the components, I could easily put it all together, complete into a roq (or almost any other format), and on my end it wouldn't take too long to render on my computer, I would probably spend more time setting it up, selecting filters, transitions, panning, etc.

[sitters]

OK I have render an new one, with the light source in Cinema called sun.
I only can control this light with time and date.



The movie :

http://www.sitters-electronics.nl/md2/render/moon6.avi

The source :

http://www.sitters-electronics.nl/md2/render/Moon_animation.rar


I going to make now other stuff.

Willem

[Mattn]

good job sitters - i'm going to commit it now

[Winter]

Considering scale, it was mentioned that the carriers are only a few hundred meters in diameter - Considering the size of a typical moon large enough to form into a sphere like that from enough mass and gravity, and have lots of craters, wouldn't the shadows also be only a few hundred meters in diameter and therefore be so small in comparison that a viewer in space would see no shadow at all on the moon?

Think about this - I live close to an airport, and once in a while I see an aircraft pass overhead and for a split second can see a shadow from it zip across the ground.  When I see this, the shadow is about the same size as the aircraft.  (The sun is very far away by comparison.)

In these video clips the shadow is being amplified to a much larger scale because I'm guessing the virtual light source is much closer.  It makes it look like the moon would only be several alien ship lengths across.  To be more realistic, I'd think the shadows would be so tiny compared to the size of the moon that they wouldn't be seen at all.

Therefore, to be realistic, the ships shouldn't have any shadow at all on the moon, only on each other (If one ship is in front of another nearby one).

Does this make sense?

At least consider this - If a manmade satellite passes overhead, does it cast a huge shadow the size of France moving across the Earth?  (And we have launched zillions of them up there now, from various countries.)

The situation is different because Earth has an atmosphere which refracts light (think of the way light behaves in a fog). The moon doesn't have an atmosphere at all, so sunlight doesn't get refracted and the lighting as a whole is much more direct.

Regards,
Winter