- It's like there's a party in my processor and I'm not invited! 2001-11-22 01:12:53 God... started trying to import my model into Bryce3D today... CHOKE! I had succesfully brought about 20% of the model into the program and did a test render in 600X400 resolution... nothing fancy, basic black background, no shadows to calculate, no wierd textures or bumbmaps, solid colors with a hint of reflectivity (which barely affects render times)... 50 minutes later, it was done. Unacceptible. My HD was going crazy the whole time. I even stopped, waiting for the HD to shut up, and then resumed, and the thing started up again. It was really taxing my PIII 550. So, now I've started importing the file over again, but I've significantly lowered the quality of the model. I've knocked a little more than 50% of the polygons out of that 20% and I've imported at least another 30% of the model. I did a test render in 720X480 (I'll probably do the actual renders in 704X480) and it completed in a little less than 3 minutes. That, I can handel. Now, there's just one custom texture I need to make... but it will have to wait for Friday... maybe Saturday depending on how much Turkey I ingest :)
-
And on the seventh day...
2001-11-20 23:34:14
Alright, it's been far more than seven days, but gosh darn it... I'm finished! I have completed my work on the Outlaw Star model! FREEDOM! Well, not nearly, I still need to do the ever not so fun task of actually importing the thing into Bryce, which will probably prove to be yet another herculean task. Ah well. Let's see if I can pull it off... I have a picture of it posted at AnimeNation, so I'll just direct you to that thread... <a href="http://animenation.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11278">Take
a look!</a> -
...does not jibe...
2001-11-19 20:38:16
Well, the entire main section of the OS has been completed, detail and all. I'm liking it. I've hacked out a good portion of the engines, although I ran into a problem. It seems one of the parts I made does not "jibe." You see, the tedge and pedge don't match up and there's a problem with the revedge, and that's why the object doesn't jibe, whatever the hell that means. A pitty to, as it was looking good aside from when I moved the camera to certain angles and it went all funky. I think I may have accidentally modeled a four dimensional object. Well, I'll see if I can finish up this one engine tonight. Hell, if I finish this one I've just finished two more in the process. I love symetry.
Last week Sci-Fi channel played the first four movies for Lexx, and I finally figured out the main problem with that show... it simply picked up in the storyline too late. The two movies that actually dealt with the main storyline were really good, the other two just sucked, like the rest of Lexx. Well, at least I understand how they managed to get it past the screeners and onto film. I don't understand how it lasted more than one season. -
GRUE
2001-11-18 00:37:05
You're standing outside of a white house... Sorry, the random letter selection for the title reminded me of Zork. I should really beat Nemises once of these days, but it just doesn't have that Zork-ish feeling. Grand Inquisitor was good, even if it was increadibly easy. Would have been nice if you could have shut the stupid lantern up so you weren't getting these insanely obvious clues all the time. Return to Zork was alright, fair amount of difficulty, but it was one of the early CD-ROM games, so they still had a lot to learn. Then there were the classics; I, II, III and Zero. Before there was such a thing as graphics we had raw text... and it was good. By now you're thinking it would be nice if you knew what the hell I was talking about, so I'll move on.
80 frames down, 60 to go. I hoping the animation will start repeating soon so I won't have to edit nearly as many, but soon it won't even matter. I think I have about three other motion sequences to edit, or at least heavy motion. This is the longest in terms of raw frames. There's one that's going to require a lot of work in each frame, but is pretty short, and then there are others that are medium in both. Long story short, sizable progress is being made. Actually, more progress than I had anticipated, which is always good.
Now, the model... you know, I'm debating whether or not to post images of this somewhere before the AMV is complete. It's really looking good, so the question is do I show it off now or do I wait and surprise everyone at ACen2002??? I don't know if my oversized and starving ego can wait that long. Anyway, a good hunk of the detailing is done on the main body. I'm either going to have that part finished either tomorrow or Monday, then it's off to the engines, and they won't take nearly as long as what this part is doing. I might have the whole model done in a week, then I get the fun task of importing it into Bryce ::shudders:: The main problem I'm running into right now is just the shear complexity of the model. It makes working on anything a pain in the neck as there hundreds of lines obscuring what I'm trying to manipulate. So, I've actually been breaking the model up into different files. I think I have about ten of them so far. This is also for archival purposes as well. I can't tell you how many times I've needed to go back to a previous version of a part because I totally FUBARed up something. Back to the progess again. I really just need to add the top and bottom turrets and the six front spikey things and then I'm practically done. There are a couple other indentations and seams, but not many, most of them are on the bottom of the model. Of yeah, and I need to add those antenna-like things sticking out of the sides... I swear if there's one thing I'm going to forget it's going to be those things. -
RTPSA
2001-11-15 00:50:29
Well, I've been working hard on my AMV and have made a lot of progress. But, before I give you the update I'm going to reply to knghtbrd, who was kind enough to direct me to a free 3D program. It looks great (although the adress was www.k-3D.com, not .org) and I wish I had known about it a few months ago. As it is I don't know if I should put aside the time to set it up and learn it if I want my AMV done before the next ACen. I'll tell you one thing, it puts my plans to buy Bryce 5 on hold. So, maybe I'll use it for my next vid.
Now, the progress report. The main body for the OS is almost done (detail and all). The only thing left of any mentionable dificulty is the cockpit. Now, the problem here is not the windows, it's the overall shape. The plastic model is pretty much useless for this part as nothing in the shape or suroundings is representitive of what the animation artwork looks like. Meanwhile the artwork looks physically impossible, hence my delema. I'm going to have to be pretty creative in altering the main body and shaping the cockpit, otherwise it's not going to look right and it will throw the entire feel of the model off. However, after this part it's all downhill, as everything is rather easy. I'm just not sure about the rear gun turret. It's kinda awkward looking in both versions.
So, since the OS model is rapidly nearing completion I've turned some of my attention back to the original footage. Now, this AMV is going to require almost as much 2D editing as my previously envisioned Garbage video. The main difference here is I know almost exactly what I want and what footage I'd use. With my Garbage video, I really had no clue for 75% of the work (the fatal flaw). Pretty much the first minute of the video will be extreamly 2D intensive. I'm holding off on any hint of the presence of 3D until the end of the first refrain, afterwhich an impressive scene reminiscent of the Star Trek: The Next Generation opening will occur. Anyway, much of the begining will be still images fading in and out, with actual clips interspersed as dictated by the lyrics and feeling of the music. However, there are a few animation sequences which will have there backgrounds removed to fit into the collage. The first one has a grad total of 144 frames! 144 FRAMES! This isn't a simple cropping job, or adding a neat effect to it. No, this is extracting a character out of an entire scene. I've sucessfully knocked 22 frames out of it today, and I'm a little burned out. To make matters worse, remember this is going to be part of a collage, so although this is six seconds of footage, it's not going to cover six seconds on it's own. In addition this stuff is going to be fading in and out and synching everything with the music will be a real challenge... I tell ya, when this is done all of you tough graders will have a great video with which to set an "Effort" rating of 10. I hoping the same for "Digital Effects" as well :)
JOURNAL: alternatefutures (Jim Schuler)
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