Animating objects possible using VfSU?

[kwistenbiebel1]

Hi Asgvis team,


Is it possible to render object animations (moving objects) using VfSU?
It seems that VfSU only exports the geometry once for all frames.
Any options that can be set so it does take geometry changes into account for each frame?
Pre-caching the Irr-map wasn't succesful.

Thanks in advance for your answer.

[thomthom]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

I second this.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Is it possible to animate objects in SU? I was under the impression that you could only animate the camera. If I'm wrong (which I most likely am), than can I get a real quick step by step so I can take a look.

[kwistenbiebel1]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Yes it is possible using the SU-Animate plugin.

These are some object animation examples done using the SU-Animate plugin (and rendered using Fry render) straight from SU:

http://www.vimeo.com/1582368

http://www.vimeo.com/1553167

http://www.vimeo.com/1545109


If you want I can send you a Sketchup scene which holds a prepared object animation (with 1 scene tab for each animation frame to be rendered).
So basically if we could batch render each 'scene' of a SU file(including layer visibility and geometry position per frame), we could obtain all the needed frames as images to stitch in video edit.
I would be surprised if VfSU wouldn't do that in current version (=full batch renders).

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Hmmm...I'm not too sure about this one. Something natively through SU would be one thing, but a separate 3rd party plugin is harder because there isn't necessarily a solid interface between that plugin and another plugin. With animation, its important for us to know everything about the object (where its going...where its been). From your initial explanation, it almost seems like things aren't moving at all, but that they are just replaced with new objects from frame to frame. If I'm wrong then okay, but I'm not sure what other method they could be using.

Anyway, I'll try to take a more detailed look at it, but at the moment, it doesn't necessarily look too good at the moment.

[kwistenbiebel1]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

The ability to batch render each scene tab (while considering layer visibility) should take care of this. Not sure if current VfSU has a batch option like this though.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Okay, so I went through and spent some time looking through the SU Animate website and a file or two that they had available for download. It appears that when animating components a new layer will be created for every frame in the animation and the component will be put on that layer in the proper place. Scenes then get added per frame and have the layer visibility set to only have the component layer for that frame visible. Some other things such as setting delay to 0 and disabling transitions are done as well.

Right now if you just enabled animation you will only get a rendering of a single frame. This is because the transition and delay are both 0, leading to an animation with a time length of 0, and therefore a theoretical frame count of zero (or in our case, no additional frames beyond the first).

If you go through and set the scene delay to 1 and the FPS in Vray to 1, you will be able to render multiple frames, but all subsequent frames are the same as the first. This is because right now the animation export process only registers camera transforms, not geometry or layer visibility.

You are correct that a batch render process will allow the scene to be rendered, but animation specific attributes won't be available to that render process (ie Motion Blur, vector information, LC flythrough calcs). Right now we don't have a specific batch render process, but using animation to go through each scene is the current work around (as described above). Since that won't work, a more explicit batch render process would be needed to support something like this. I'll forward this to the developers so they can take a closer look for sure. As a batch render process it looks relatively feasible, but as an full blown animation process I would say highly unlikely.

[kwistenbiebel1]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Thank you Dalomar for your reply.
I think batch rendering of all 'scenes' in a file could also be handy for people who want to batch render multiple still views of their projects over night.

[thomthom]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

Thank you Dalomar for your reply.
I think batch rendering of all 'scenes' in a file could also be handy for people who want to batch render multiple still views of their projects over night.

Absolutely. I just completed a project yesterday where I'd really wish I could have set my computer rendering over night instead of rendering while I was working with the computer.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

I kinda half described the work around for the batch render process...

1. Disable transitions and add a 1 second delay in SU's animation settings
2. In the V-Ray Options enable Animation and set the frame rate to Custom and then 1 fps
3. Set you're save path and render

This will work for simple camera transforms, but will not work when there's changes in any other properties (layers mostly). We'll have to and more explicit support for those layer changes and also things like objects facing the camera.

[cat4fish]

Re: Animating objects possible using VfSU?

I kinda half described the work around for the batch render process...

1. Disable transitions and add a 1 second delay in SU's animation settings
2. In the V-Ray Options enable Animation and set the frame rate to Custom and then 1 fps
3. Set you're save path and render

This will work for simple camera transforms, but will not work when there's changes in any other properties (layers mostly).  We'll have to and more explicit support for those layer changes and also things like objects facing the camera.

Nice dalomar, useful tips for those batch render people.
I have tiny correction for point 1,but my test result shows:
setting might be"1. Enable transitions and 0 delay"
Finally we make VFS batch render works as Every Scene rendered,and just render once to be standalone still scene. Just work for simple camera transforms, AND Shadow(DATE/time),not for facing camera objects and hiding.