CG Character Animation Short Film Comedy - Online Development Diary

sh0420_DVL_deciding - Render WIP v01

This is a render of an old shot, one that was actaully one of the first scenes to do test renders with at the beginning of 2010. This still isn't a final shot though, there area a few problems I'd like to look into and I'm very open to anyone that would like to take a hands on approach to improving it. The Tail flame isn't quite working, I think the geometry deformer may not be on, or at least I can't really see it's affect working. I found that, unlike a side for front view of the tail, the end on view seen here has a virtually solid alpha which makes the comp effect opportunities far less interesting. The flame speed also seems too slow from this angle. The pixie dust in the air is masking out around his hair and the edge of the Sphere prematurely and might need to be re-thought. I don't know yet if it's in the animation like this but his teeth don't seem to have rendered. The strap on his chair doesn't seem to render the same in any shot and I keep having to come up with new ways to achieve roughly the same look. I'm having to use his hair alpha as a matt for his hair effects, and it's creating an unnaturally harsh edge. I'll look in to softening that. I also need to animate the glow of the button on the wand.

Get Embed Code

Tags: angels, animation, cg, dating, devil, More…film, lighting, render, short

Comment by iskander Mellakh on December 17, 2010 at 6:05pm: looks great :)

do you mean with the hair matte the cracks in his hair? if so why don't you set up a pass for it?

the pixie dust is because you have motion blur on the hair and not on the dust, you can add motion blur but you would need to test it.

Comment by Michael Cawood - Director on December 17, 2010 at 6:51pm: This does use a separate pass for the hair, it's just that the glow affect on the hair also makes a dark aura appear around the outside edge that has to be masked out. I'll try the motion blur on the Pixie Dust more... I think this was already at value 1.0 (I'm assuming that mean it's on and blending between frames).

Comment by iskander Mellakh on December 17, 2010 at 7:34pm: have you set Devil to be unpremult? that would help remove edges a bit.

I think 1.0 means only 1 frame(I will double chec nex time I am in Maya), if you up it you will get a motion trial. however you will need to experiment to get the look you are after.

Did test for the wing effect the other night, will do another one tomorrow and post it :)

Comment by Michael Cawood - Director on December 17, 2010 at 7:42pm: Cool thanks. And yes, Devil has the correct edge premultiply, that's not the issue. No worries. I'll look into it.

Comment by Mohammad Sadeh on December 18, 2010 at 1:35am: looks really cool :), it feels like the peeps is not inside the sphere as they flouting in front of it, or maybe just me seeing it this way, its just a minor thing.

Comment by Michael Cawood - Director on December 18, 2010 at 7:34am: Yes, that's what I was thinking too. The details on the surface of teh Sphere seems to disappear in front of the Peeps. Not sure why or if it has something to do with how close the camera is.

Comment by Rafael San Gregorio on December 20, 2010 at 2:39am: Cool, that old 420 shot :D haha nice to see it beeing rendered :D

The teeth made me laugh :D