OK, so there's a challenge on the Foundation-3D forums sort of inspired by a post I made there. The original post concerned this film posted on Youtube. It's by Larry Cuba, the guy that made the computer briefing animation for the Death Star attack way back in 1977. It details how he made the animation using tons of specialised systems and a supercomputer, and how long it took to render each frame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac
We began to wonder how long it would take to do this using our current 3D tools and PCs, and it sort of developed into a challenge idea. I suggested we might try and see how quickly we could do it now, and that maybe the next 'retro' challenge might be the Genesis Device briefing from TWOK. The challenge moderator decided to combine the two, so the December challenge in now to brief the Death Star attack, then blow it up with the Genesis Device instead of an X-Wing.
Anyway, since I kinda instigated it I thought I should have a go at it, despite having no idea how to go about creating the Genesis wave effect. I started at the beginning however, so I'm making the Death Star briefing first before worrying about the more complex part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hF4Z_KYPIc
The video above take it to the part where it starts to zoom in on the Death Star, made to see if I could get the look right. It took 10 minutes to make the model, 20 to animate it and 10 to render, each frame taking a whopping 1.9 seconds to make even with 5x anti-aliasing and photoreal motion blur turned on. Larry Cuba would have killed for this tech in the 70's! Over the next couple of days I will build the rest of the models I need to finish the DS briefing, then it will be on the the Genesis part of the project. Anyone want to join in?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac
We began to wonder how long it would take to do this using our current 3D tools and PCs, and it sort of developed into a challenge idea. I suggested we might try and see how quickly we could do it now, and that maybe the next 'retro' challenge might be the Genesis Device briefing from TWOK. The challenge moderator decided to combine the two, so the December challenge in now to brief the Death Star attack, then blow it up with the Genesis Device instead of an X-Wing.
Anyway, since I kinda instigated it I thought I should have a go at it, despite having no idea how to go about creating the Genesis wave effect. I started at the beginning however, so I'm making the Death Star briefing first before worrying about the more complex part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hF4Z_KYPIc
The video above take it to the part where it starts to zoom in on the Death Star, made to see if I could get the look right. It took 10 minutes to make the model, 20 to animate it and 10 to render, each frame taking a whopping 1.9 seconds to make even with 5x anti-aliasing and photoreal motion blur turned on. Larry Cuba would have killed for this tech in the 70's! Over the next couple of days I will build the rest of the models I need to finish the DS briefing, then it will be on the the Genesis part of the project. Anyone want to join in?
