Animated characters

[sea2stars]

Hrmm.. before I continue further with what I've started to play with.. Is it worth putting animated mesh characters into a video? Or would animated textures be a better solution?

[Morne]

huh? characters as in people and creatures etc? When its a mesh its obviously 3d geometry? What you mean by animated textures? as in video of people that has alpha channel and just comp it in after effects?

Please explain in more detail what you need as I don't know what you are talking about.

[sea2stars]

Yeah, up to now I've only been animating static scenes. I just starting rigging a few low poly 3d character meshes to play with in an architectural scene, and have been reading up on the extra time required to render moving objects; compositing, IR map animation, etc. Or using something like this and just have them be self illuminated and be excluded from the GI solution?

[Morne]

The map people to a plane approach works well in most cases and it is the fastest option you get. Touchy people might complain however that with this approach the ligthing and shadows on the people (due to the photograph) does not match and is distracting. But for the average person they wont even notice this. Sometimes also you can't put people too close to a wall as depensing on the angle, they will look like they standing in the wall with the one foot. (Even the animated versions)

With the 3D mesh approach you get more accurate ligthing and shadows on the people and surroundings and they wont be inside walls. The problem with this approach is that it is useless for something up close as you can see the people are CG. But for medium to far shots this is perfect.