The largest scene you'll ever see on Carrara.

Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

maybe .. ;-)

It is the largest I'll ever have to (probably), and it took 2 years and 4 months to plan / construct.

When I've used it in episode 8 of Sci Fi Funk (now in production), I'll do a tutorial on all I've learned about large scenes. After that I'm opting for an easier life (until the next large scene).

The scene, although dark to start with, gets lit up by the Flying taxi headlights and as we get closer to Eastgate concourse the building lights become more apparent.

Since planning this scene, I never knew if it would be technically possible. It is (just) via using proxy's and removing objects not in a particular shot.

The scene at this point is in fact 4 separate scenes merged together (Ganzill Towers in the background, Eastgate (wall) in front of it, Eastgate Concourse (the buildings in front of the wall), and the London GIS mapped buildings of Gants Hill. Plus moving people, The Taxi and a bus.

I hope you'll be kind a have a little celebrate with me :-)

SF8_Eastern_Av_Approach_v141c_All_objects_ANIM.jpg
1920 x 1080 - 1M

Comments

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Can't wait to see the animation!


    Have you considered rendering backgrounds and spherical renders of this large scale scene for use in other aspects of your production for faster renders?

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    Can't wait to see the animation!


    Have you considered rendering backgrounds and spherical renders of this large scale scene for use in other aspects of your production for faster renders?

    Thanks man.

    No I haven't thought of that. Thanks!

    That might get me out of a fix when I need to render the same scene looked at from the other side..

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    There can be limitations, but if you render a scene showing the occupants of the flying taxi or bus having a conversation, then a spherical render around the scene may work great.


    I used some spherical renders in the background and some regular camera renders in the backdrop of that Black Hole video I posted recently in the Post your space scenes thread. Pretty much anything with Maximillian and the astronauts was a spherical render mapped to a large sphere.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    Looks impressive - congratulations! I sure hope you have duplicated / replicated all those objects, rather than loading them individually, as this will be much more memory efficient.

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited August 2013

    PhilW said:
    Looks impressive - congratulations! I sure hope you have duplicated / replicated all those objects, rather than loading them individually, as this will be much more memory efficient.

    Hi there. Thank you.

    It's a mixture of replication and individual objects exported via City Engine. In my opinion there is always a trade off between pure memory considerations, and time (our time) to make something. Hence I used a bit of both.

    Post edited by Sci Fi Funk on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,988
    edited December 1969

    I hope you’ll be kind a have a little celebrate with me

    no problem, congrats on the outcome it looks grande :)

    I don't know if a shadow catcher arrangement would help somewhere as well?

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    head wax said:
    I hope you’ll be kind a have a little celebrate with me

    no problem, congrats on the outcome it looks grande :)

    I don't know if a shadow catcher arrangement would help somewhere as well?

    hmm. not looked into that for Carrara. I should do - would I be correct in saying shadow catching works best if the background is static?

    This is a fast moving scene as we fly from this point to the outskirts of the new city in just 30 seconds!

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    head wax said:
    I hope you’ll be kind a have a little celebrate with me

    no problem, congrats on the outcome it looks grande :)

    I don't know if a shadow catcher arrangement would help somewhere as well?

    hmm. not looked into that for Carrara. I should do - would I be correct in saying shadow catching works best if the background is static?

    This is a fast moving scene as we fly from this point to the outskirts of the new city in just 30 seconds!

    Providing you can match the shadow catcher plane (or planes) to the background, it will work fine with animations as well as static images. They are most used when making a render over a photo or filmed background, but no reason you couldn't use it with your own rendered background and this will ensure that can marry the two well - although in your case, I'm not sure it would give you a big advantage doing it this way.

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:

    Providing you can match the shadow catcher plane (or planes) to the background, it will work fine with animations as well as static images. They are most used when making a render over a photo or filmed background, but no reason you couldn't use it with your own rendered background and this will ensure that can marry the two well - although in your case, I'm not sure it would give you a big advantage doing it this way.

    Thanks for the explanation Phil.

    I think just in this case I'm committed to rendering lights and shadows in full, as there is no background as such - it's all models.

    However I will be looking into this technique in the future. Again thanks for the technical info.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578
    edited December 1969

    Congratulations on this huge undertaking finally making it to film! Bravo Steve!
    What a long, hard-fought battle it's been , eh?
    I am very grateful for it - as it's been giving you many good reasons to share your learned knowledge on how to deal with various set-backs to the rest of us via your really nice video tutorials! For which I am truly appreciative.

    Not only that, but it also spells that the Sci Fi Funk saga continues!!!
    Cheers my friend! :)

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    Congratulations on this huge undertaking finally making it to film! Bravo Steve!
    What a long, hard-fought battle it's been , eh?
    I am very grateful for it - as it's been giving you many good reasons to share your learned knowledge on how to deal with various set-backs to the rest of us via your really nice video tutorials! For which I am truly appreciative.

    Not only that, but it also spells that the Sci Fi Funk saga continues!!!
    Cheers my friend! :)

    Many thanks for your continued positive vibe on my project. I have reached beyond the very limits of my patience in the last 2 years. I hope to return to how it was in 2010 soon, talking about and sharing more animations, but of course I'll keep the tutorials coming after each time I get stuck again. ha ha.

    I shall indeed be making the mother of all tutorials when episode 8 and 9 are done. Something like "everything you ever wanted to know about large scenes but were afraid to ask".

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578
    edited December 1969

    You know, I came to Carrara software for the ability to easily load content and then (here's the big difference from others) change the mesh - or even model something new, all in the same software. No more searching for fixes and plugins and... and...
    But one starts to find out how vast we can get within this killer application, and you go and get all carried away with it! lol
    That is one amazingly huge scene!
    I think that some of us can forget what it was like before having Carrara, and the days when just a fraction of what we do in here could crash the best of 'em. If not crash - make them slow as molasses, or worse!
    But your "Building Large Scenes" tutorials series and others, showing how to reduce file footprint size for better optimized scenes has truly given me a whole new perspective on how to jam even more into a scene.

    Oh... and I gave you your own, whole space now. You've outgrown your place amongst a list. So now your name remains in the list as a link to your new Tutorials Spot!
    I have changed the link at the bottom into two links, that lead directly to your YouTube Playlists because I'd like people to have more direct access than having to enter the old forums (access to them is really slow for me). But I also want to leave those links in, for those who might want to read the discussions we've had back then. Perhaps we could, one day, make new threads with the links for each category, like they were then, for this new forum - and have alternate links aside the existing ones.
    Thoughts?

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969


    Thoughts?

    My thoughts are - you are a star! Thanks so much for taking the time to raise the profile of my work.

    btw. I have another tutorial brewing on how to animate quicker. It builds on standard advice which I foolishly ignored when I started and only now (3 years 9 months into this) appreciate how important it is to seperate your rendering phase from your animation phase.

    I'll explain when I make the thing. Cheers!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578
    edited December 1969

    Sweet! I love a good tutorial! :)

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