Camera Animation WiP

[Laxy]

Hi all,

Thought I'd share the progress I'm making with my first proper Vray project! I'm doing an animation featuring old style cameras in different environments inspired by the spectacular animation 'The Third and The Seventh' by Alex Roman. I'm doing the project in Blender, rendering in Vray and some post-processing in After Effects or perhaps Flint if I can get my hands on one.

I'm doing a handful of cameras. This is the first, a Hasselblad 500C! I finally worked out how to do glossy textures which have really REALLY made this start to look real (ish). I'm usually really critical over any artist who claims their work looks real so I'm going to say that I'm 'aiming' to make it look real. Hope I get close anyway.

Here it is! comments and crits welcome!

~Laxy

[victorphellipe]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

A+.

[voytov]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

It looks better than real!
"seeing" is always a perception of what we see and what we know we see. This is why artists can introduce something of their souls when "rendering" their art. Then it has some message (may be aesthetical) added to the "raw" visual layer. They go beyond the plain realism.

And all that is here. The way you "shape" and harmonize light to fill scene and emphasize the object is of highest quality to me. It is well chosen to the subject of the future animation.
Modeling and textures are superb in my opinion. I always considered realistic metals as weakness of v-ray. I didn't know the script has glossines-level mapping available just now. (could you give us some highlight which material factors did you map to achieve gloss and scratches?)

In general for static images the composition of the main object just in the centre of image is not the best idea, (I've got architectural approach). Also the lense blur is a bit to strong.

Anyway great one!
Best regards
W

[haikalle]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

This is a beatiful camera. The detail level is amazing.

[jorisAR]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Nice work you're showing there.
It looks very realistic to me, the materials and the lighting are well done.
And the model is great !

Only thing: I think the blur / DOF is a bit too much.
Keep up the good work and love to see the rest.

[bdancer]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Very good!

[soulofsound]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Superb render, Jonathan.

Did it take you long to get this result?

Can't wait to see your Gecko rendered with V-Ray.

[Laxy]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Thanks for the comments everyone!

@voytov @jorisAR
Wow thanks, yeah I didn't really compose the image like I would do on the final animation and I think the DoF sort of detracts from the detail etc. Hopefully with a proper background it'll look a lot better.

@soulofsound
How do you know my name?! No-one is safe! Help!

This took me a week of modelling and remodelling (someone else modelled the base mesh), and a week of texturing lighting etc. And it takes 20mins to render at 1080p

Yeah I'm thinking about redoing the gecko, might look good :S

[soulofsound]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Sorry i gave you a bit of a fright there, mentioning your name : i'm quite a fan of your website, i think your demo reel is superb, even more so if it's all done in Blender (except post-work of course).

I remember writing you last year, or maybe that wasn't you. Doesn't really matter.

I'm also looking at doing something like the Third&Seventh, as i'm looking at foliage right now. Sadly it isn't possible yet to overlay a bunch of proxies with a colour gradient, so i think rendering leaves will be a bit too soon.

Did you render the DOF in V-Ray or in AE (Lenscare? TrueCamera? Digieffects?)

[Laxy]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

@soulofsound

Thanks Willem! Aha I can find out names too! I'm not currently planning to do any foliage in my animation. Perhaps if its out of focus in the background I might attempt it but I don't think I currently am skilled enough to do proper flowing leaves etc.

I had a little trouble doing the DoF in VRay. I couldn't get the results I wanted so I simply rendered a manual depth pass (Blender Internal render with a white fog background and shadeless black material override) and then took that pass into AfterEffects and used the basic lensblur filter. I will go back to the DoF in VRay but frankly its so much easier to do it in post regardless.

I really want to use Magic Bullet Looks, but after buying VRay I need to wait for my wallet to gain its confidence back. Will see how the animation goes. I'm working on a tripod and 2 more cameras. Will post more renders later next week!

[soulofsound]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

Is there a reason you don't use V-Ray's own Z-depth pass?

I'm using that one, but it's giving me less than mediocre results in AE.

[Laxy]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

I can't animate the depth in Vray. I can in Blender.

[soulofsound]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

If you render out the z-depth with V-Ray, it will do that for every frame of your animation, isn't that enough?

[Laxy]

Re: Camera Animation WiP

I've found when zooming in or moving a camera a lot in an animation you need to adjust the Z-depth pass in order to get the best results with the DoF. There might be a better way of doing it but its how I've always done it.