I've been working on 1_01_03, but I can't make a shaded render to see what the animation looks like. The renderer crashes around frame 450 and takes up about 2GB RAM when it dies. I have 4GB (3.4GB) installed. All other programs are closed. No viruses,trojans etc...

Can someone please see if you can render this chor in shaded mode and post it somewhere so I can look at it? (don't forget to compress the movie). The chor is up on SVN.

Thanks.

It asks for Tin Man Walk.act. I didn't want to render without that.

I tried rendering, but I get a 033 exception at frame 366.

I'd recommend using hold interpolation for camera switches. It stops "drifting" and reduces the number of keyframes to deal with.

Oops, "Tin Man Walk.act" is on svn now.


Thanks for trying. Anybody have any ideas about how to fix this?


I hear your recommendation about using Hold interpolation. It also prevents blurrered frames between cuts when you render with multipass.

I usually go back and switch the last keyframe in each pair to Hold interpolation, but I forgot to ... I actually thought I would be doing more work on this chor. The problem with using *only* Hold interpolation is that you can't make the camera "drift", and a subtly drifting camera can be a very good thing in 3D animation because it increases the sense of depth in the scene - and can also add a psychological element to very long shots. My biggest challenge is that I often move the camera too far, and the shot ends up looking too busy. A drifting camera shouldn't draw much attention to itself.

OK, so I don't have 10 years of camera experience, but I'm not pulling this *totally* out of my a**. I remember reading a few things about drifting the camera, then a fellow I did a couple of animation projects for actually requested that I drift the camera ... then I just gradually began to prefer it over static cameras (except for very short shots).

I appreciate some shots require the camera to move. Which can make shots more exciting. But most shots? Don't they have tripods in Oz? I'd be interested to see where you read that. I can't find any evidence of it in stuff on You tube for example. Here's a great short by Pixar that has plenty of static camera shots. Maybe you're thinking of hand held style.

Thanks for the link Ken. That was a really nice piece. Most of the shots were really short, so probably wouldn't benefit from what I'm talking about. But the two longish shots at the end, where the big bird is sitting on the ground, would benefit from a little bit of camera drift IMHO.

I can't remember where I read about using camera drift. At the time, it was just an interesting idea, so I didn't pay much attention to the source.

A few months later, I started playing with the idea. Now I really like it, but I'm still learning about how to use it most effectively. It seems most effective when it doesn't call attention to itself. The most difficult part for me is to remember not to move the camera too much, but only slightly - just enough to give a little bit of depth information.

Oh. Is that moving the camera in toward the subject? I know the effect now. Yes that can work well. But indeed, it's not for every shot.

Yeah, I guess it's not for every shot. You can move the camera toward the subject, or you can pan slightly, depending on the composition (pulling out only seems to work on rare occasions). It works especially well when you have a character giving a long piece of dialog. It not only gives a bit of visual depth, but also helps to pull you into the characters thoughts - an added bonus.

OK, I finally got it to render. I blocked and animated this one. I am aware there are a couple of sound snafus in the render. I think I fixed them all.

1_01_03

Nice work! That's a fun (and long!) shot. Animation is almost there already. I personally find camera movement on so many shots distracting.

Very well done - I really like your acting choices.

I also like the camera movement. I find it adds visual interest, and feels more cinematic-ish. Fits well with these camera cuts.

To me, the subtle camera movement does guide the viewer's attention, and add meaning.