Animated Images

[Jackson_cg]

Re: Animated Images

Having full control of all aspects of the camera and easy ways to make the kinds of minute adjustments needed for camera motion is something that is worth its weight in gold in a number of situations.

Amen to that. I've been nagging at Google about better camera controls since SU5, but I think they're just not interested (and I guess it's tied up with the lack of the 4th dimension at SU's core).

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animated Images

Better camera controls are not necessarily an issue specific to animation. Right now there are no explicit camera position and target capabilities within SU (unless I missed them). This makes so many things an incredible bitch...specifically setting DOF focal distance correctly.

The minute adjustments I was specifically referring to were the ones that can be done through Max's Track View offer so much more control and are so much easier than trying to update curves and pages and things. If you have a chance to, play with those while doing an animation and you'll see how easy you can go from a few quick choppy views to butter smooth. I just played around with it for a minute or two and miss being able to animate with it (most of my recent animations have been scripted through Rhino).

[steelers05]

Re: Animated Images

I see your points Dalomar, as much as I dont want to accept it, but I do. Sketchup is not able to do, and may never be able to do, the things that max can. Kwisten, ive seen some of the great work you have produced and I agree with you that SU can be the primary illustration tool in an office(an architectural office that is or interior design office), because that is exactly what we use at my office and we are able to turn out some fairly good work, but it just cant live up to the performance one needs in the "big time" animation world. Look at companies like spine3d or neoscape; it seems like it is going to be a long time, if ever, that SU will be able to output the level of work that they are at. Now I know that with them you start to get into the realm of motion graphics and all that. But that just makes even larger strides that SU needs to take. Your talking about particle stystems, fluid dynamics, and many other things that SU isnt even on the verge of(even though i did see a small video about particles in SU somewhere). I do hope that some better camera tools are coming and I would think that is acceptable to expect that as SU customers, but I just dont see the google guys getting to the level of output that max can produce. I think our best bet (because I am trying to use SU to its max with animation as well) is to take what we got with SU and learn as much post production techniques in programs like After effects to put together animations. Animations dont necessarily have to be all about camera movement, you can do a lot with post production to liven up a presentation. Biebel, I am completely yearning for the same things as you, but I pretty much have come to the conclusion that I will waste more time waiting on SU than it would take me to learn max..especially since V-ray runs fairly similar in both programs. You obviously have v-ray and many other programs down, so I think you will have an easy time working with max. Also, I agree with Dalomar on, yeah SU is fast to work with, but I dont necessarily think work flow is faster if you know max like you would know SU. It just seems like SU is faster because it is so easy to work with at first. I dont know, this is just my opinion and I hope the google guys prove us wrong, because if SU ever catches up to max in just a few areas things will get really interesting.


Oh and Dalomar...you mention work that you do, any chance we could see any of it, because I am very curious to see some of the stuff you produce. I think it would benefit everyone, even if it wasnt done in SU.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Animated Images

Thanks Steelers...

I'll try to get some of my work up. To be honest I haven't had the time to get through a full visualization project in quite a while. Most of the stuff I do here is short bursts of testing and problem solving for you guys, so I'm not doing as many things start to finish as I used to. Also, a few of the images that I have done recently are not in the public domain, so although I'd love to show them to you, I am bound by agreements not to do so.

Anyway, I'll see what I can do about getting a few of my older projects up on YouTube or something. If you guys really want to see what interests me beyond visualization, then check out my blog liquidtectonics.blogspot.com. Its more geometry and design focused, but there are some computer graphics influenced stuff that will likely end up there (ie cloth and hair stuff).