Sun study animations

[foglite]

I'm playing around with the 30 day demo and nothing but impressed. Totally great for doing Arch Vis work. But...

Rhino has always had the nice little solar study animation built right in and I'd love to be able to get the Vray sun and sky working in a solar study animation to take it beyond just showing shadows. So far I'm stuck though, does anyone have any suggestions on how to pin the Vray sun and sky to the sun study animation scripts included in rhino?

Thanks!

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Sun study animations

We do support Rhino's built in animation tools, but I'm not really sure if the sun study can be connected to the V-Ray sun or not. I will look into it and see if there is a way to get that working. If not, there might be a way to script it ourselves, so your not without some options. I will look into it tonight and see what I can uncover.

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

Awesome, thanks!

I think it is a script, but I have zero scripting abilities so I'm no help.

Now, if you get that working maybe we could combine it with the camera path tool....

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

I just did a solar study with the vray sun and sky by hand keying all the time changes into the vray sun properties, LOVE that vray sky!

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Sun study animations

So as expected the sun study animation feature doesn't work with the V-Ray sun. So, I went through and wrote a script that will some of it for you. You'll have to set up 2 things, but its quick and simple, then the script will run fine. The download has the script (rvb file) and a ReadMe file. Here is the Read me file.

So here's the script for doing the animated sun study. It does most of the work for you, but there are a few things that you've got to take care of on your own for it to work.

First off, you'll need to make a sun and a sun path. Here's how I did it...

1. Make the sun for the starting position (lets say 8 am)
2. Make another sun for some where in the middle (optimally this will be at the highest point of the sun for that day/location)
3. Make one last sun for the end position (lets say 6 pm)

Now you will have to move each sun so that all three have the same direction point. You can do this by selecting the lights and pressing F10 or turning on the control points. After you've moved the lights so they have the same direction point, you will need to make the sun path. I did this by using an arc and simply selecting the start point as the first sun location, the next point as the second sunlocation, and the end point as the third. It is important that you do this from the earliest to the latest sun, as the script knows what direction the line was drawn in. At this point you can delete the extra two suns, or turn them off if you want to keep them around.

Second peice of leg work is to Create the File folder
When it comes to saving the file it helps to have all of the images in a separate folder. So the script will save all the images in this path -> (your current file Path)\SunStudy ... the problem is that that file folder doesn't exist yet, so in order for the script to work correctly (and your renderings to be saved) you need to make that file folder. Just go to what ever folder your current rhino file is saved in, and make a folder there called SunStudy. After that you should be good to go.

Here's a quick check list before you actually run your script
1.Sun and Sun path are made
2.Any extra suns are turned off
3.Your options reflect the sun that you will be using for the animation (ie sky references the correct sun, correct exposure)
4.You made the file folder for the images


The script will ask you for several things. A sun, a sun path, the number of frames you would like to render, and the file name. You will also want to make sure that your active viewport is the viewport that you wish to render. You will also need to make sure that the sun and the path are visible within that viewport. It doesn't matter where or how big the sun/path are, since the rendering will only take into account the direction.


Here is the link to the script http://www.box.net/shared/q1s9bl6d4d

If you need to know how to use scripts or make buttons for them you can find that here

This script is only been tested in Rhino4

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

Awesome! I'll play around with it this morning.

It's great to see that ASGvis support is such an excellent match for the outstanding support Rhino users are accustomed too. We're so spoiled.

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

Lets see if I can link to the quick video I made from the solar study...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...35606339720706

[Micha_cg]

Re: Sun study animations

Very nice, it's great to see a Rhino sun study with animated sky.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Sun study animations

Glad to see that you were able to put the script to good use ;D

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

Thanks!

There's a lot of knowledge gained from these forums in there: Micha's grass, dalomar's script, brick and glass from the material section....

I'm continually amazed how helpful everyone can be. Thank you to all of YOU!

[foglite]

Solstice celebration

Ok, there are no pagans dancing around. But I thought I would run a higher fps version last night of the solar study. Lets see if I can get it hosted without making the resolution too tiny...

http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?i...equinoxvj1.flv

[foglite]

Re: Sun study animations

I can't seem to get thumbnail links embedded in messages, anyone have any pointers on the correct code for this?

[joe_b]

Re: Sun study animations

I can't seem to get thumbnail links embedded in messages, anyone have any pointers on the correct code for this?

you should just need to do...

[img]http://link.to.my.image.jpg[/img]

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Sun study animations

You can enable the forum to use html, but I can't remember where that option was (maybe profile or something).