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Subject: 
Re: Unfinished Project Release
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.animation
Date: 
Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:47:27 GMT
Viewed: 
5385 times
  
At 07:53 AM 1/2/2004, you wrote:
In lugnet.animation, Mike Thorn wrote:
Usually people try to finish projects before they release them, but...got
to make room for other projects, you know.

It's a shame there isn't a bit more. How long did you spend on that, Mike? I
tried to do some POV animation a while back, but the learning curve was a
little
too steep for what I wanted to do.

Chris,

Actually it took longer than you'd expect. I haven't learned enough about
using the PoV-Ray clock yet, so I did it the hard way. For each frame I
created a new file with MLCad, then ran it through L3P to produce the POV
file. From there I just created my particular resolution (592x400 isn't a
standard PoV-Ray resolution) and rendered it. For the custom lighting
frames I had to go in and hand-edit the light definitions. Simple, just
monotonous. I'd say all told it took me two or three weeks to finish up,
but there were a few big gaps in there where I didn't have time to work on
it. If I animate that slow on the VODB project I'll be till *next* year
finishing that one...

The PoV-Ray stuff really isn't that hard. If you want to learn the basics
I'd suggest going through the povray.org Beginner Tutorial. I learned
enough to let me create a basic scene from scratch that looked half-decent.
To animate smartly, though, you really need to learn how to use the clock
and let it all be automatic. I did this with my VODB trailer, where the
camera pans around the Black Falcon army. That was all automatic; I just
started it going and stitched the frames when it was done. It's a little
more tricky to learn, though, because you have to fiddle with the axes of
movement and the settings aren't exactly the most conducive to animation.

It's somewhat easier than building big sets, though, if you're good with
MLCad. Doesn't make nearly the mess, either. :) If you have a good fast PC
there are settings you can use that make it look a lot more realistic, but
are seriously power-hungry. Each of those frames took probably 30 seconds
to render. With the better settings they would have taken at least five
minutes. It adds up.

~Mike



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Unfinished Project Release
 
Animating with POVray is a matter of mathematics, but animating Ldraw-generated things is pure horror. You have to analyse the source file to locate the different objects, you have to find out where the pivots are (which is not easy, since the (...) (21 years ago, 2-Jan-04, to lugnet.animation)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Unfinished Project Release
 
(...) It's a shame there isn't a bit more. How long did you spend on that, Mike? I tried to do some POV animation a while back, but the learning curve was a little too steep for what I wanted to do. (21 years ago, 2-Jan-04, to lugnet.animation)

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