3D Master
Rear Admiral
This has got nothing to do with easily offended. This is systematic, and it's been going on for years.
Modified TOS Ent - Wallpapers
- Thread starter Vektor
- Start date
This has got nothing to do with easily offended. This is systematic, and it's been going on for years.
ST-One
Vice Admiral
Well, I was hoping to post an animated shot of the nacelle powering up, but it looks like that's not going to happen for a while. I let it render for seven hours overnight and it only produced 60 frames out of 300, and that was using medium quality settings and no motion blur. If I boost the quality to where it should be and add motion blur, the render times more than triple. I really need to find a way to speed this up.
I'm using Distributed Bucket Rendering on three computers, a quad-core, a dual-core and a single-core, but I would probably get better results switching to network rendering and just letting each computer handle its own frames. I'll give that a try when I get home later today.
Another thing I may have to do is use a different material for those nacelle domes and probably for the spinning blades. The diffuse effect on the dome material all by itself is enough to bring a CPU to its knees, and the specular metal blades with all those interreflections are bogging things down pretty badly as well.
Aside from switching to network rendering, I'll probably grind through with everything else for this first test and make further adjustments later. It still going to be a couple of days before I finish it, though.
I'm using Distributed Bucket Rendering on three computers, a quad-core, a dual-core and a single-core, but I would probably get better results switching to network rendering and just letting each computer handle its own frames. I'll give that a try when I get home later today.
Another thing I may have to do is use a different material for those nacelle domes and probably for the spinning blades. The diffuse effect on the dome material all by itself is enough to bring a CPU to its knees, and the specular metal blades with all those interreflections are bogging things down pretty badly as well.
Aside from switching to network rendering, I'll probably grind through with everything else for this first test and make further adjustments later. It still going to be a couple of days before I finish it, though.
Yep, I ran into the same render crippling issue with my dome(s) effect with TOS.5 E in modo. It took upwards of an hour+ to render a close-up frame of the dome(s).
Once I got into LightWave with her come TOS.5.2 E, I totally redid the effect (more to my liking as well), but always made sure to figure out a way-less expensive method. Went from hour+ down to like 10 mins for the close-ups.
Best of success with that on your end, V.
deg
Once I got into LightWave with her come TOS.5.2 E, I totally redid the effect (more to my liking as well), but always made sure to figure out a way-less expensive method. Went from hour+ down to like 10 mins for the close-ups.
Best of success with that on your end, V.
deg
Well, after adjusting some material properties and fine-tuning a few settings, I got the render time on my quad-core rig down to under 6 minutes per frame. I can even do it with motion blur at less than 8 minutes per, but I'm foregoing that for the test animation. My dual-core system is considerably less powerful, taking upwards of 15 minutes per frame, but it still helps quite a bit in the long run. The third single-core system is out of loop at this point as it only has 32-bit WinXP and won't work with the 64-bit systems through Backburner.
I re-started the full 300-frame animation from scratch about 9 AM this morning and it's well over half way to completion. If all goes well, I should have a finished version ready to post by morning.
I re-started the full 300-frame animation from scratch about 9 AM this morning and it's well over half way to completion. If all goes well, I should have a finished version ready to post by morning.
Okay, without further ado, here is the first test animation for the nacelle domes:
Engine Powerup Test 01
This is a WMV file that everyone should be able to play, but let me know if there are problems and I'll try a different format.
Engine Powerup Test 01
This is a WMV file that everyone should be able to play, but let me know if there are problems and I'll try a different format.
I think it's a great start (pun unintended). It's really hard to judge the overall concept in this early test run though (i.e., brightly-illuminated surroundings, not in space, none of the energy effects Vektor mentioned earlier, etc.). And after all, this is only the first trial run... it's only going to get better!
My only comment for now: Try rendering how it looks without the spike rotating.
btw, I am pretty sure I've seen clips from the original series effects where the vanes spun in the same direction and in opposition (both clockwise/counterclockwise and vice-versa). Star Trek had more than one effects house in Hollywood doing the visual effects, which is why the quality of the F/X and the appearance of the Enterprise herself varied so much onscreen. I think an argument could be made for just about ANYTHING based on those "canonical" inconsistencies... LOL!
Actually, the spike isn't rotating. I used interpolated reflections on the metal material to speed up the rendering a bit and it creates artifacts as the POV changes. Interpolation can work quite well for still images but is generally bad for animation.
Ah! I stand corrected and look forward to the next iteration. Modeling-wise I think you've nailed this... I can't wait to see what you come up with for the energy effects!
I see what you're going for and it works.
Very nice. I echo the suggestion that the blades should spin towards the ship. I'll also add two things: the glowing elements behind the blades need to get brighter and be less pink.
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