Peter's Challenge

TwoBrainedCylon · October 6th, 2009, 07:33 PM

For years, Peter has had an open challenge to me to make a CG model look like a physical model. He (and others) have always held that CG is substandard to using physical models because the look just doesn't pass the skeptical eye. In most cases, he's right. The tradeoff has always been the versitility of CG models and the ability to completely eliminate any traces of matte lines.

Matte lines are less of a problem these days, making the case for physical models stronger.

However, I humbly submit this frame as my progress towards making a CG model look like its physical counterpart.

This is one of about nine Hi-Def (HDTV) animations I've cranked out over the past couple days.

All my best,

Russell

Lara · October 6th, 2009, 11:40 PM

I'd say solid strides up the right path... but I'll leave the validation to those more qualified than I.

Cheers,
Lara

Athene · October 7th, 2009, 08:04 AM

Very, very nice.

I was wondering what program you used to create it.

gmd3d · October 9th, 2009, 08:48 AM

Stunning work Russell. great to see you back at the cgi work.

Athene. I think TwoBrainedCylon is a Lightwave user .. unless he has changed

TwoBrainedCylon · October 9th, 2009, 04:46 PM

Hey Taranis, ... nice to see you also.

Athene, I am a Lightwave user (who was forced to get skilled with MAX during my brief stint doing this professionally). I'll be dabbling more with Maya over 2010.

I was proud of the rendering times of the new machine until I loaded up this guy. This model still needs retexturing and unfortunately, it renders like a pig, even on the rendering farm.

All my best,

Russell

TwoBrainedCylon · October 10th, 2009, 11:12 AM

peter noble · October 10th, 2009, 12:18 PM

That basestar's looking real good. I 'd like to see it move though.

In the targeting display, "hectons" would be "hectars". There are 10,000 square metrons in a hectar.

Great stuff.

Titon · October 11th, 2009, 06:19 AM

Looks good Sandy.

It's all relative in terms of real world vs cg. Hence the idea of building cg models with the panel lines and such modeled into them instead of using texture maps. But in that case you always end up with a resource hog. Getting the right balance is always a challenge but can be accomplished.

TwoBrainedCylon · October 11th, 2009, 06:54 AM

Don,

Are you on Yahoo chat at all? Lets talk.

Peter (and all),

Thanks for the correction. The target screen is just something I slapped together with PhotoShop from one of the frames. (These things will be moving -- more on that in a bit). It was a quick idea. I'd like to hear suggestions on what should be on the Galactica targeting screens. The only thing they ever had was the Viper targeting screens used everywhere over and over and the larger radar tracks for the incoming fighters. For the final shots, I'll use After Effects and have stuff changing on the screen.

Since starting the software load on the new computer, I've discovered what a mess my graphics files have become over the last 12 years. More importantly, I've realized that I don't have a clue what the better models are that are available. I have a good standard Raider, Basestar, standard Viper, and Darrell's Cobra fighter. Beyond that, I'd call every other model I have substandard in regards to doing a proper animation. My intention in the semi-near term is to work on the following:

1. Bring my adaption of the DeSanto raider up to speed with better panel lines, a few more nurnies, and better texturing.

2. Finish the AB raider (from G1980).

3. Properly texture the basestar.

Those will be available for anyone in the known Fleets circles who wants them.

What else is out there that folks are willing to offer up or know about?

All my best,

Russell

Dawg · October 11th, 2009, 08:10 AM

Re: the targeting screens: life form scan.

I am
Dawg

Titon · October 12th, 2009, 05:23 AM

I do not have yahoo chat Sandy.

Sorry.

Ship me an email.

Don

TwoBrainedCylon · October 14th, 2009, 07:15 PM

Don,

Will try to get an e-mail out to you within a week.

I adjusted the size of the star balls to more closely match the original series pattern. It turns out when you scale it down to NTSC, it doesn't seem to matter.

All my best,

Russell

mikala · October 15th, 2009, 12:09 PM

Those are all looking very nice. Very nice indeed.

TwoBrainedCylon · October 24th, 2009, 01:44 PM

Peter,

The model needs some dirty textures but ...

http://www.fxguys.com/hold/Basestar01c.mov

For the rest, I'm having a codec issue. What is the accepted codec for pumping out videos these days?

Russell

peter noble · October 24th, 2009, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwoBrainedCylon

Peter,

The model needs some dirty textures but ...

http://www.fxguys.com/hold/Basestar01c.mov

Many thanks, I think I'll have to add a baseship sound effect to it tomorrow!

Titon · October 24th, 2009, 03:59 PM

Looks good.

Couple of suggestions.

1. Move the camera a bit. To static. Like the motion of the Basestar though

2. Textures...you already mentioned that.

3. It's a wee bit bright. Maybe my monitor.

4. Possibly blur the stars a bit more.

TwoBrainedCylon · October 24th, 2009, 08:31 PM

It needs a complete texturing.

The stars look good in the HD shots. They become sharp pinpoints in the scaled down video.

Your monitor is just fine. Here's an example of the image sequence loaded into quicktime (left) and the video output (right). I've got a slew of image sequences but on the freshly loaded system, the videos aren't working out too well. Lightwave in particular is rendering .avi files that look like sewage.

Any suggestions on image sequences to video?

Russell

peter noble · October 25th, 2009, 02:13 AM

Here's TBC's animation with sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBWI0anIoR8

Titon · October 25th, 2009, 05:44 AM

Sandy, don't use Lightwave to output Quicktime. For some reason lightwave's rendering of quicktime is utter crap. Output as 32 bit targa's and either run the sequence through the pro version of quicktime itself or i like to still use Sorenson Squeeze 5.

Both Adobe's version of either Adobe Pro 4 and After effects lost something when they switched to using a seperate rendering setup other than straight out of the app. Adobe decided to use a seperate rendering Que and ever since then i've switched back to CS3 on both apps.

Lightwave's animating setup's for some reason have never been even close to good when rendering out to an avi of any type.