Today was the day of the final presentation. My presentation went quite well though, although I had to speed it up due to lack of time. Anyways, I will post my final shot and the breakdown later. Phew.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Day 71
Today I came in and finished up tweaking my camera shake. I did a couple of test renders in Nuke to make sure they are alright before I set it off to render. I also rendered shot 2 out which hasn't had much compositing work to be done. After that I rendered and save out those passes that I wanted in my shot breakdown. I then went in to After Effects to do them. I finished my shot breakdown and I then went and compile all those screenshots and videos that I'm planning to show tomorrow.
After compiling them, I saved them in a folder and all I had left now is the PowerPoint slides which I will do at home.
Hope the presentation will go smoothly tomorrow!
After compiling them, I saved them in a folder and all I had left now is the PowerPoint slides which I will do at home.
Hope the presentation will go smoothly tomorrow!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Day 70
Today, I came in and continued archiving my hip file. Jeff Wagner had a class at 10am which was very interesting and useful.
After that, I did a little more archiving and it was off to Sony ImageWorks for the studio trip. Mr Ari drove us to the studio which was about a 10mins drive from SESI.
We were the first to arrive at the studio and we just hanged around there while waiting for the rest of the interns to arrive. We looked at their demo reel which was showing on a screen in the lobby.
The overall trip was a very enjoyable one, particularly because of him. We then headed back to SESI and continued working on our projects.
I managed to finish archiving my files completely. After that I moved on to compositing. I am still trying to fix the camera shake problem. Trying to blend between the static background at the back and the camera shake for the terrain in the front.
After that, I did a little more archiving and it was off to Sony ImageWorks for the studio trip. Mr Ari drove us to the studio which was about a 10mins drive from SESI.
We were the first to arrive at the studio and we just hanged around there while waiting for the rest of the interns to arrive. We looked at their demo reel which was showing on a screen in the lobby.
The overall trip was a very enjoyable one, particularly because of him. We then headed back to SESI and continued working on our projects.
I managed to finish archiving my files completely. After that I moved on to compositing. I am still trying to fix the camera shake problem. Trying to blend between the static background at the back and the camera shake for the terrain in the front.
Day 69
Today, when I came in my files are still rendering. And out of a sudden all my renders started crashing on the farm. The error log wasn't really that helpful also.
I then went into the render of my first shot. There were a couple of missing frames( like around 10plus) I went into my scene and re-render each of them individually. In the end, I managed to get it to finish and I have a complete sequence of shot one. Phew.
Now to shot 2, the renders on the farm screwed up quite bad. But luckily I foreseen a problem like this and as a backup, I rendered my entire shot 2 locally as well. The renders locally were perfect. Not a single missing frame. Next up, the dust. The dust was the most problematic of all. Initially when I rendered my dust, I brought it into Houdini COPS as a test frame. I realised that there wasn't enough dust and therefore I increased the particle birth rate. However, when I brought the render with more dust into Nuke, it looks totally screwed up.
It looks like this after I did an over with the terrain render.
The dust render with more dust:
The dust render with less dust:
God knows why is it like that. Hence, I went back to my first dust simulation file and re-started from there. I also tweaked a little of the lighting as it was too dark in the latest render. I realised that I couldn't use back the same lighting system that I used to light the terrain. I did some re-tweaking and I am good to go. The render with the less dust is the render which the lighting was also fixed.
I re-rendered the dust for both shots on the farm and it was super fast.
While I was at it, I started compositing in Nuke for the first time. I started compositing for the first shot. At first I had trouble separating the passes and stuffs like that but after consulting Zack about it, it became all clearer. I also managed to apply Zdepth to my render with Zack's help and also his help file. I also placed a background at the back of my render. I also added camera shake. Below is a single frame of how it looks,
Zack saw this render and told me that my background shouldn't be shaking too much as it is much much further away from the field of view. He also told me if I had time I should do some blending of the image with the terrain render.
I also started archiving my file.
I then went into the render of my first shot. There were a couple of missing frames( like around 10plus) I went into my scene and re-render each of them individually. In the end, I managed to get it to finish and I have a complete sequence of shot one. Phew.
Now to shot 2, the renders on the farm screwed up quite bad. But luckily I foreseen a problem like this and as a backup, I rendered my entire shot 2 locally as well. The renders locally were perfect. Not a single missing frame. Next up, the dust. The dust was the most problematic of all. Initially when I rendered my dust, I brought it into Houdini COPS as a test frame. I realised that there wasn't enough dust and therefore I increased the particle birth rate. However, when I brought the render with more dust into Nuke, it looks totally screwed up.
It looks like this after I did an over with the terrain render.
The dust render with more dust:
The dust render with less dust:
God knows why is it like that. Hence, I went back to my first dust simulation file and re-started from there. I also tweaked a little of the lighting as it was too dark in the latest render. I realised that I couldn't use back the same lighting system that I used to light the terrain. I did some re-tweaking and I am good to go. The render with the less dust is the render which the lighting was also fixed.
I re-rendered the dust for both shots on the farm and it was super fast.
While I was at it, I started compositing in Nuke for the first time. I started compositing for the first shot. At first I had trouble separating the passes and stuffs like that but after consulting Zack about it, it became all clearer. I also managed to apply Zdepth to my render with Zack's help and also his help file. I also placed a background at the back of my render. I also added camera shake. Below is a single frame of how it looks,
Zack saw this render and told me that my background shouldn't be shaking too much as it is much much further away from the field of view. He also told me if I had time I should do some blending of the image with the terrain render.
I also started archiving my file.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Day 66
Today, my cache files managed to finish over the night without failing. Lucky. I went ahead today with the re-tweaking of the lights. In the end, I decided on one look that I was satisfied with. I then proceed to throw the file into the render farm. I decided not to render a specular pass but instead render a Z-depth pass for the first shot. I asked Bryan on how to set it up.
I then moved on to the dust. I re-tweaked it a little more before I started rendering it. I then took a frame and compared it. The dust looks over-exposed.
I did a quick comp, and it looks quite bad. I then went back to my scene and started re-tweaking the lights. After much tweaking, I switched off the front and side light, keeping the spotlight and the point light on. Just keeping the spotlight on makes the dust looks quite dark.
After I did a render, I did a quick comp and the result was much better than before. I asked Tanner whether it looked okay. He told me the dust ring should be much bigger, the pieces that just started to crack should have dust.
I then went to do some tweaking. Initially, I was tweaking the velocity attribute in the source pop. The result is more like a cheat, as it translates the whole simulation. It looked like I could just get away with it in the beginning. But nearing the end, it started breaking apart.
I then decide to re-make the group that emits the particles. In SOPS, I did a group node that groups the points over time, and I made that group slightly bigger than the group that groups the points for fracturing. I then made a inner ring group that de-selects the points. I then subtracted the inner ring group from the main group. The result? I get a group ring that I could emit particles from.
I then used that group as the source group instead. I then also played with the impulse birth rate and the constant birth rate. I decide to put a much higher value on the impulse birth rate. I then increased the size of the initial size of the sprite. The end result was decent I would say. I then threw in the files to render locally.
Looking at the render farm, I decided to set up one of the renders just in case it couldn't finish over the weekend.
I then moved on to the dust. I re-tweaked it a little more before I started rendering it. I then took a frame and compared it. The dust looks over-exposed.
I did a quick comp, and it looks quite bad. I then went back to my scene and started re-tweaking the lights. After much tweaking, I switched off the front and side light, keeping the spotlight and the point light on. Just keeping the spotlight on makes the dust looks quite dark.
After I did a render, I did a quick comp and the result was much better than before. I asked Tanner whether it looked okay. He told me the dust ring should be much bigger, the pieces that just started to crack should have dust.
I then went to do some tweaking. Initially, I was tweaking the velocity attribute in the source pop. The result is more like a cheat, as it translates the whole simulation. It looked like I could just get away with it in the beginning. But nearing the end, it started breaking apart.
I then decide to re-make the group that emits the particles. In SOPS, I did a group node that groups the points over time, and I made that group slightly bigger than the group that groups the points for fracturing. I then made a inner ring group that de-selects the points. I then subtracted the inner ring group from the main group. The result? I get a group ring that I could emit particles from.
I then used that group as the source group instead. I then also played with the impulse birth rate and the constant birth rate. I decide to put a much higher value on the impulse birth rate. I then increased the size of the initial size of the sprite. The end result was decent I would say. I then threw in the files to render locally.
Looking at the render farm, I decided to set up one of the renders just in case it couldn't finish over the weekend.
Day 65
I set up my dust to render.My files on the farm also started moving. But they are crawling. There was a class scheduled today at 12pm to 1.30pm. So I didn't really start doing much work before I had to evacuate my work station to make way for the class. The class today was an introductory class to Houdini.
After the class, I then continued with my work. I took a frame of my dust and did a quick composition with the terrain and realised that there wasn't enough dust. I then started tweaking the dust.
Mr Steven dropped by in the evening to check on our progress. I showed him my terrain render and the dust, and also the quick composition. I told him that my files are taking very long to render. I was wondering if he could take a look at it and if possible help me optimise.
He took a look and first thing he told me was to turn off geometry velocity blur on my terrain. Then he reset my min/max ray samples to default and turn up my pixel samples to 5. He also told me not to use environment light as it will increase my render time by a decent amount. He also tried rendering out shadow maps. He also replaced my arealight to a spotlight with deep shadows.
He then asked me to send a frame of my cache file and my hip file to him so that he could take a even closer look. He also told me that I must cache the simulation files with a shader assigned out. He told me that I should find a way to fake the environment lighting without using the actual environment light.
I left the files to cache overnight.
After the class, I then continued with my work. I took a frame of my dust and did a quick composition with the terrain and realised that there wasn't enough dust. I then started tweaking the dust.
Mr Steven dropped by in the evening to check on our progress. I showed him my terrain render and the dust, and also the quick composition. I told him that my files are taking very long to render. I was wondering if he could take a look at it and if possible help me optimise.
He took a look and first thing he told me was to turn off geometry velocity blur on my terrain. Then he reset my min/max ray samples to default and turn up my pixel samples to 5. He also told me not to use environment light as it will increase my render time by a decent amount. He also tried rendering out shadow maps. He also replaced my arealight to a spotlight with deep shadows.
He then asked me to send a frame of my cache file and my hip file to him so that he could take a even closer look. He also told me that I must cache the simulation files with a shader assigned out. He told me that I should find a way to fake the environment lighting without using the actual environment light.
I left the files to cache overnight.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Day 64
Today, the dust render which I set up last night took so so long on a single computer. I guess that I had to use the render farm but till now, I still do not know why my files keep failing on the farm. Anyway, I tried tweaking the dust to optimise as much as I can. I made the size of the sprites smaller and also the particles birth rates. Hopefully it would speed things up.
I then asked Tanner if he happened to know why my files keep failing. He told me that everything that I submit onto the farm cannot have any spaces in them at all. God, my files all have spaces. I fixed them all up and threw it into the farm, and guess what? It worked perfectly.
I then moved on to my very troubling terrain. I passed Mr Steven the files that he requested from me. While I was waiting for his reply, I went ahead and did some render test for my passes. My plan was to have 3 passes, diffuse,specular and shadow. However, I couldn't get my passes to work. I then consulted Zack and he told me that as I was using a lighting model node at the end to color the shader. Lighting model node doesn't have the variables needed to rendered out the extra passes/image plane. He also told me that usually, surface model is used instead.
He then asked Charles to see if he knew something about it. Charles then helped me build both the specular and the diffuse from scratch, using a illumination loop. He made use of some complex mathematics and thinking.
It took him quite awhile before it got to somehow work. After that, I was thinking, why don't I just switch the lighting model node to a surface model node? It should work right?
After doing some test, I realised that it worked perfectly. Perfect.
Mr Steven then came back with a reply. He told me that he did a test on his own with my files and he didn't get the same problem which I had at all. But he advised me that for now, just get all the renders out first.
Anyway, just to make sure that my dust is working fine, I did a test render of the terrain at super low resolution and did a quick composite. Luckily the matte of the terrain which I rendered on the dust matched the terrain which I render.
I also set up the terrain render of both the cameras for the terrain.
I then asked Tanner if he happened to know why my files keep failing. He told me that everything that I submit onto the farm cannot have any spaces in them at all. God, my files all have spaces. I fixed them all up and threw it into the farm, and guess what? It worked perfectly.
I then moved on to my very troubling terrain. I passed Mr Steven the files that he requested from me. While I was waiting for his reply, I went ahead and did some render test for my passes. My plan was to have 3 passes, diffuse,specular and shadow. However, I couldn't get my passes to work. I then consulted Zack and he told me that as I was using a lighting model node at the end to color the shader. Lighting model node doesn't have the variables needed to rendered out the extra passes/image plane. He also told me that usually, surface model is used instead.
He then asked Charles to see if he knew something about it. Charles then helped me build both the specular and the diffuse from scratch, using a illumination loop. He made use of some complex mathematics and thinking.
It took him quite awhile before it got to somehow work. After that, I was thinking, why don't I just switch the lighting model node to a surface model node? It should work right?
After doing some test, I realised that it worked perfectly. Perfect.
Mr Steven then came back with a reply. He told me that he did a test on his own with my files and he didn't get the same problem which I had at all. But he advised me that for now, just get all the renders out first.
Anyway, just to make sure that my dust is working fine, I did a test render of the terrain at super low resolution and did a quick composite. Luckily the matte of the terrain which I rendered on the dust matched the terrain which I render.
I also set up the terrain render of both the cameras for the terrain.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)