How YOU can help the completion of Reflections of Style 2!

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How YOU can help the completion of Reflections of Style 2!

Postby Brad » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:22 am

Hi folks! If you're reading this then the subject line piqued your interest, so I'll get straight to the point.

For Reflections of Style 2, we are doing a fully 3D rendered introduction sequence listing all of the creators names. It looks absolutely amazing and was constructed and animated by our wonderful neighborhood Trythil. However, with beauty comes a price. Because it's all being done in 3D (using an open source 3D graphics application called Blender), each individual frame needs to be rendered. Well, there are 1690 frames in the sequence (at 30 frames per second, equaling out to 56.3 seconds of video), and each individual frame being rendered by Trythil is taking anywhere from 1 to 3 HOURS to complete (like I said, with beauty comes a price). So, this is our dilemma. We have plans to premiere Reflections of Style 2 at Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is in roughly 5 weeks (or 46 days to be precise). So far, Trythil has only been able to render out the first 305 frames. If you do the math, given the amount of time it takes per frame, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to render out the whole sequence in time.

Here's where you come in.

We are looking for ANYBODY who has CPU power to spare. Whether it's your home computer and you don't mind running a render in the background, or if you happen to have 1 or 2 spare computers lying around that you don't use. ANYTHING will help.

Here's how the process would go:

1) You decide that you would like to help us out.
2) You download and install Blender (the 3D graphics application) and YafRay (the special renderer that we're using, also free).
3) You either reply in this thread or send a PM to Trythil, letting him know that you're willing to help. (Once I get back from Otakon I'll be more than willing to be the one to delegate all of this, but unfortunately I'm taking off Wednesday night, but I didn't want to wait until I got back the next week to start doing this, since time is a serious factor here)
4) He will give you the link to download the project file plus basic instructions on how to set up Blender (though really, the project file has just about all the settings set up for you)
5) He will give you a specific range of frames to render, plus how to set it to render them (this way if we have a lot of people helping, people won't end up rendering the same frames)
6) You'll need to render out a test frame of one of the already completed frames, just to confirm that what you're rendering is going to look exactly like what we want our final product to look like (it'd be horrible if some batches of frames look out of place amongst the rest of the video)
7) Once you have your batch done, you send your PNGs (lossless baby!) to either me or Trythil.

Now, in return, for helping us get this intro done, your name will be inserted in the end credits (I haven't talked to Knives about this yet, but oh well. I'm doing the end credits section anyway, so if he has a problem with it, too bad :P). I realize that's not that big of a reward, but it's the best I can offer. We're mainly just asking for your generosity and time. Once again, any help will be appreciated.

Download links:
Blender 2.37a
YafRay 0.0.7 (this is not the newest version but it IS THE VERSION WE ARE USING. YafRay 0.0.8 will NOT render out the correct image)

Disclaimer:
I know that this should be a given, but if you agree to help us, PLEASE don't make things more difficult by either not going by the guidelines or telling us that you're going to do a range of frames and then don't do anything. That will only set us back :-\ I trust though that you guys (and gals) will pull through and we can get this baby finished in time for AWA!
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Postby Bakadeshi » Tue Aug 16, 2005 6:28 am

If its only rendering, I can help with that. I do have blender already installed (though I need to check if I have the latest version)

I have 2 PCs, so I can actually have one rendering pretty much all day while I'm doing my other stuff on my main pc.
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Postby risk one » Tue Aug 16, 2005 6:50 am

I've got some cycles to spare. I'm out studying for my finals these days, so my PC is pretty much unused.
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Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 1:50 pm

Thanks!

I've sent you two PMs re: file locations, testing, and frame ranges.
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Postby SnhKnives » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:16 pm

gah, you could have let me know earlier. we could have done this a long time ago -_-


anyway, i might have CPU cycles to spare, let me know how i can help too
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Postby Kitsuner » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:35 pm

I would also like to volunteer to help.
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Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:40 pm

SnhKnives wrote:gah, you could have let me know earlier. we could have done this a long time ago -_-


whoops :p
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Postby dokool » Tue Aug 16, 2005 2:50 pm

Once I'm back at school (this weekend) I'll see if I can set up my laptop and/or MCE box to help.

Out of curiousity, what're the specs of the computer trythil is using for that render? Just so I have an idea of how fast my systems would handle the load...
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Postby SnhKnives » Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:16 pm

I would also like to add that the more and more time that goes by...the more and more this becomes mission critical, so if you sign up for this, you MUST and I repeat MUST be able to be contacted by either Trythil, Brad, or Myself.

That means some sort of contact. If you dont want to give us your phone number thats fine, but you must be online at some sort of consistency to be able to recieve emails and PMs.
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Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:35 pm

dokool wrote:Out of curiousity, what're the specs of the computer trythil is using for that render? Just so I have an idea of how fast my systems would handle the load...


Code: Select all
trythil@lothlann trythil $ uptime
 16:42:18 up 23 days,  8:48,  4 users,  load average: 1.14, 1.04, 1.08

trythil@lothlann trythil $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 4
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+
stepping        : 10
cpu MHz         : 2194.370
cache size      : 1024 KB
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 pni syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips        : 4341.76
TLB size        : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp
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Postby Castor Troy » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:00 pm

Can't wait to see the final tracklist. :)
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Blender rendering

Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:04 pm

Just so I can save myself a private message :)

====


How to set up Blender and YafRay

Blender setup is mostly clicking through the installer. Extract the YafRay executable and run its installer.

Here's what you need to know about rendering and animation:

Image

OUTPUT DIRECTORY FOR ANIMATIONS: Set this to a place you know about. It's set to my home directory by default.

CURRENT FRAME SELECTOR: This is the frame you're looking at in the 2D/3D/interpolation curve windows. You can set it directly by clicking on it, or you can use the arrow keys to scroll through animation.

PRESS THIS BUTTON FOR TEST RENDERS: This button renders one frame using the selected render engine and parameters. After the render is complete, you can save the frame as a PNG by going back to the main Blender window and pressing F3.

RENDERING ENGINE SELECTOR: You shouldn't need to (and just plain shouldn't :P ) change this, but you can switch the rendering engine if you want. Switching the engine will not result in the loss of any rendering parameters.

FRAME RANGE SELECTOR: This is where you select the frame range you're working on.

PRESS THIS BUTTON FOR ANIMATION: This button renders the selected range of frames.

The YafRay tab must look like this:

Image

(If you have multiple processors, you can _try_ adjusting the Processors tab, but AFAIK YafRay 0.0.7's multiprocessor support is a little borked)

The YafRay GI tab must look like this:

Image

Finally, the format of the output must be 720x480 at a pixel aspect ratio of 96:79 (not quite NTSC 16:9, but close):

Image

All these settings should be preset in the project file.
Last edited by trythil on Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:09 pm

Er..

I just tried to render this on my WinXP machine, and Blender crashed.
My Linux box is still chugging away, but...


Crap.


Anyone had more luck than me?
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Postby Kitsuner » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:33 pm

The same thing happened on my computer, so I would guess that XP doesn't like the project or something.
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Postby trythil » Tue Aug 16, 2005 5:39 pm

Oops!


The file in the YafRay package isn't the YafRay executable itself -- it's an installer.

Run the installer and everything should work on XP.
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