The Joys of Rendering

Posted on September 1, 2014 by SusanG

Rendering an animation is a time consuming process. It is also a computing resource consuming process. When I started rendering the frames for this project I found that just opening a browser page could be slow. And these renders aren’t fast.

I found that the time it takes a single frame to render is between 17 and 19 minutes. I am rendering at 800 x 600 and sampling each pixel twice. I am rendering only the single full pass, nothing extra like an ambient occlusion pass or subsurface scattering or what not.

I had originally estimated that each frame might take 20 minutes to render. For 300 frames at 20 minutes that was 6000 minutes. Doing the rest of the math, my original estimate was that it would take 4 days and 4 hours to render. Fortunately, each frame is not taking 20 minutes to render and it looks like the render time will be a little less than 4 days.

One of the things that I have noticed is that when I am rendering from 3ds it seems that my graphics card is pulling a little more power than it usually does. I saw an interesting spike in my power bill last month when I started creating prettier renders of my daily work. With this in mind and the amount of time it just this short scene is going to take to render, I decided I should look into render farms.

I found a couple that look like they might fit within my current budget. There are surprising number of render farms out there. This is good because I have a couple of other projects in mind that will likely be more than 300 frames. When I get to those I’ll have to do more research on that and I’ll let you know what I end up with.

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Ready to Render

Posted on August 29, 2014 by SusanG

Everything I want is modeled. I added a camera. Time to animate and render.

I started out thinking I would bring the camera in from the left side and curve it around and then move up to the table as sort of zoom in and then look out the window. The first thing I had to figure out or remember was how to set a key frame since I didn’t want to use Auto key. Once I had that addressed I started moving the camera and setting my keys.

The default timeline for animating is 100 frames. I tried setting the animation up in 100 frames and it went so fast it made me nauseous. That was not going to work. I thought that standard movie frame rates for U.S. were 24 frames per second so when I did the calculation 100 frames is just over 4 seconds. That’s hardly enough time to see things. I decided to try 300 frames which at 24 frames per second is about 12.5 seconds.

Even at 300 frames the path of the camera didn’t work out well.

So I started over setting the key frames and instead decided to just move the camera in from the back of the room up close to the table and then a bit of a look out the window. This was much better and with less turning of the camera there was less of a feel of riding a roller coaster.

Time to start rendering. Meaning of the tutorials I have watched discuss the rendering options with regards to file output. You can render all frames straight through and output as a movie file. This means your computer is on and running for as long as it takes, or until power goes out or the program crashes. Both failures would then require starting again from the beginning. The other option is to output as individual image files and compile those into a video in a different program. The advantage is that you can render just a few files at a time and if your system loses power or crashes you can pick up at the last completed frame. There is a lot more control over the use of your computer resources this way.

I’ve chosen to go with the render a frame at a time option and once it’s complete I will then compile everything into a video file from there.

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Finishing Touches

Posted on August 26, 2014 by SusanG

Almost done. Well, for as far as I want to take this scene. I could, as is always the case, continue to add many more objects and components, but where to end it. I think this is enough for now. I do really need one more object to finish it off. The candle.

Now that I have the candle stick holder to my liking, this has given me some issues along the way, I need to put a candle in it. I used a cylinder primitive to model from. Some edge loops and soft selection tool to get it just right. I even added a wick, though I don’t think you can see it very well. For that I also used a cylinder. I had to scale it way down and then use the rotation tool to bend it a few sections at a time, and then move them back into place. I could have used part of a torus, but where’s the fun in that.

BeautyRender_0810_02

I wanted a wax material for the candle but I didn’t find a pre-made one in my library so I chose a red plastic. I dropped an omni-light in a flame shaped object that I gave a transparent and self illuminating material. That way it makes the flame look like it is lit.

 

 

CameraView_0812_02

And now it’s time to add a camera. I added a single camera with a 50mm lens for rendering through. This gives me better control over the field of view.

The next step is to layout how I want the camera to move in the scene.

More fun and games to come.

 

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Need Another Chair

Posted on August 23, 2014 by SusanG

One chair just won’t do for this scene since there are two place settings so I need a second chair. I could copy the one I have and use that and be done with that. Of course, you know that is not going to happen.

So a second chair must be modeled. I wanted it different from the other one so I chose to do something based on, but not exactly like, one of my own dining chairs. Incidentally, the round or hoop back chair is similar to a chair I once owned.

Back to the second chair.

I decided to do something with more of an overall square shape instead of the round. You would think it would be much easier and go much smoother in the modeling, and while for the most part it did, I still ran into a few issues. The need for edge loops to maintain the shape and the harder edges was even more important. And I found trying to get the legs and the seat to fit just right was a bit awkward. I had tried to model the seat base and cushion from one primitive and that did not really work out when it came time to notch out the seat to accommodate the legs. SqrChair_0806_01

As you can see I decided that the cushion and the seat base should be modeled from separate primitives. This really worked out better as I was better able to fit the cushion onto the seat and in between the back risers.

 

SqrChair_0810_01

I found a nice cloth material for the seat cushion and used that so it adds some interest to the scene as well.

 

 

 

 

I think the two contrasting chair styles are fun. Chairs_0810_01

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Something to Sit On

Posted on August 20, 2014 by SusanG

The scope of this project just keeps growing. That is what happens when you do not start out with a clear and specific plan. That’s ok because that allows for freedom of creativity and happy accidents. Or the realization that you really need something else to make the
scene look more complete and less awkward. As is the case with this scene.

Since I decided to create a dinner table scene set for two people, the person who lives in the space and company, I realized that I need some thing for these people to sit on, at the table. Thus a need for a chair or two. So time to create a chair. I suppose I could do something fairly basic and not very exciting. Yeah, I don’t ever do things that way.

I decided to go with one of those chairs with the hoop back and the round legs. Only, I didn’t want just the basic round legs, I wanted something a little more decorative and fancy.

For this I started with the spanner type area that goes between the legs to stabilize them. I made the middle one and then the two side ones. The biggest trick here was figuring out how to get the ends to taper nicely and how to get the bulbous areas to adjust smoothly.
Enter the Soft Selection tool. This little jewel lets you select something and then set how far out changes will be impacting and to what extent. So you select one end and set the falloff and then, as example, you scale the part you selected, instead of having a dramatic change, you get a more gradual change.

Chair_0719_01

So when selecting the edges to scale down to get the detailing on the spindles I used the Soft Selection tool and was able to get some very nice transitions. I was able to select both of the ends at the same time so I could scale them the same amount and it worked quite nicely.

As you can see, I pretty much took a bottom up approach to creating the chair. I started with the inner spanner/bracers and then added the legs. I did one, on the front, and got it the way I wanted it, including setting it at an angle, and then copied it. This worked really well for the second leg on the front. Setting it at the angle before I copied it complicated the copy for the back legs. However, by it really just required some basic rotation and then I already had them at the correct angle to match the front ones so that they weren’t too straight or too far angled out.

Chair_0719_02

I didn’t do a lot to the seat. I know I could have done a bit more too it. I just wasn’t feeling it. So I rounded the corners and softened the edges. Of course this required strategic placement of edge loops. Some closer to the original edges to maintain volume and shape and some a little farther away to get that rounded corner look. Then I scaled the back side so it wasn’t quite as wide as the front.

Time for the seat back. I had already decided I wanted the hoop look and so I knew I was going to need spindles or dowels in the middle. I just needed to choose which one. I chose the spindles that were sculpted. I wanted to continue some of the design already in use instead of create something new. So I copied one of the side spanners. I rotated it, and then scaled it up to make it longer and down to make it skinnier. I put one in the middle of the back of the chair seat so I had some idea of the height I wanted the hoop.

Chair_0724_01

For the hoop for the seat back I used a torus only I did not make it a 360 degree torus. I used the option that allowed me to create only part of it. I think it went around about 230 degrees, maybe not quite that far. I still had to rotate it a little because of where it took the origin from. Still this was much easier than creating a complete torus and then deleting the segments that I didn’t want. I used the soft selection tool again on the ends. I wanted to make the sides more vertical instead of rounded so I needed to rotate a little and move the ends out. The soft selection tool let me do that. I spent a lot less time fiddling with it than if I had tried moving each set of edges on their own.

Chair_0726_01

Chair_0726_04Once I got the hoop created it was time to add the rest of the spindles. So I copied the first one to create the rest. They each required some scaling and placement adjustment so that the ends weren’t sticking out the top of the hoop. So this was looking pretty good except that the back was very short and squatty compared to the rest of the chair. So I scaled the entire back up so that it was skinnier and that fixed that issue. From this point there were two things I considered for making the seat back look better. I could angle it back a bit so that it looked more at the correct angle, and I could round it a little bit so it looked a little more contoured. The contouring part was a little more than I was feeling up to at that point so I did the angling part and skipped the contour option.

BeautyRender_0726_01I found a nice wood material for the Seat and the seat back spindels and then a nice paint for the other parts. And even for the things that I know I didn’t do that I think could have added to the chair, I am really pleased with the way the chair turned out.

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