Our 2010 Community Project is "Bus Stop". Everyone can play!

1) Download this zip containing the set

Click to view attachment

(Thanks to mtpeak2 for making the fabulous set!)

2) unzip it to your hard drive

3) load the PRJ for your version of A:M. There are versions for v13, v14 and v15. We don't have a version for before v13; not yet anyway.

4) Animate your scene in the Choreography.

Every scene begins with a bus pulling away to reveal this view of a bus stop. You animate what is happening at this bus stop after the bus pulls away...until the next bus arrives to cover up the scene again. You don't animate the bus. I'll add that in post.

5) you can use your characters or any stock A:M characters

6) shorter is probably better.

6b) Use your good judgment on content. I reserve the grand power to not use something if it's unsuitable for mass viewing but I'm sure that will not be a problem.

7) leave the camera and lights where they are.

8) you can add sound or leave your scene silent

8) Rendering Update: In your Options Panel set rendering to "use camera Settings". That will load the settings stored with the camera when you go to render.

The camera is set to render to a JPG series. An image series was chosen instead of Quicktime so you wouldn't have to render your animation all in one stretch.

Resolution:

The camera is set to render at 720x405.

If you prefer you may up the resolution to 854x480 when you go to render. This is 40% more pixels and will take 40% more time to render.

I'll edit the video at the larger size and upscale smaller renders to fit. Either size is acceptable.



9) Get done by: October 20 27

10) I will edit together everyone's segment

ask questions below if you have them

Have fun! I'm sure we will see some great stuff!

what is final render size? cause I am getting this....
Click to view attachment
I have not changed anything, just loaded project and rendered it.

In your options panel set rendering to "use camera settings"

thanks

Rule 11) By submitting your entry you are saying it's ok for us to use it and add it to the pile and put the whole thing on the web.


For anyone incorporating sound in their work...

a) It's sound you have the rights to. No commercial music or sound tracks.

b ) I'll add directions later on how to send your audiotrack so it can be put in synch with your image series

Click to view attachment

with 2 characters I am rendering at 2:10 per frame

You've got more power than I do!

render time for mac pro g5 v15
7:47
v15

Is that just the set? Or, do you have characters in it?

Render time for Mac Pro, 2x2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, v15

3:12

Since I can render 7 frames at the same time, it will be the same as 27 seconds per frame.

Are these times for the render a "Render to File" or a "Quick Render"?

Mark, sounds like you got a nice setup there.

Test your render time early and plan ahead for whatever that is!

no just the set
i noticed 15 is slower then 13 for me
2x2 duel core intel xeon

Click to view attachment
There's my rendertimes.

I have a big question.
When doing the bus transition how much time does that effect the beginning and end of our animation.?
I started a shot then realised that the first few frames would not be seen due to the bus.
Am I right?


Gene

Good question.

It's possible the bus may zip by very fast sometimes so not much idle time may be needed.

Let's say give your scene about an extra second on each end. Ideally you wont' have your characters frozen but they'll be doing some simple moving hold thing.

Consider also that the right side will be the first revealed when the bus departs and first covered when the bus arrives.

So the bus is traveling right to left correct

Yeah I think so.

Are we to post the WIPs for this project in this forum?

You certainly may. Or you can keep it top secret, whatever you feel will get you the best result.

Now that the set's all ready my mind is a COMPLETE BLANK.

I have an idea but I probably won't do anything for this project mostly cause I haven't finished an animation project in approx 5 years. so you can have my idea if you want

Seems like a good time to stretch your animation muscles then.

Rob, I believe you mentioned a 24fps frame rate? Is this already set up in the camera settings?

It's actually set in the PRJ properties, but double check to make sure.

Yep, there it is!

I wanted to use "Schlitzy" from the library, but it seems like the hair material is kicking up the render times. I just did a test and it was taking 26 minutes a frame. That don't sound right!

Hey, Gerry... just as an experiment... import this chor into the chor you have (RMB on the chor>import>Choreography), turn "Global Ambiance type" to None in the chor properties, turn AO off when you go to render and render with 5 passes and see what the render time is.

Click to view attachment

This is unofficial and unapproved... it's just to test.

Image 1 is the original render, took about 26+ minutes.
Image 2 is Robcat's version, took about 16+ minutes.

In the objects folder expand "OneLight" until you get to "Light1" and increase the intensity to... 15% or 20% maybe.

In either case I think you'll need to edit the hair material to undo the incandescent white look it's getting.

Schlitzy uses the old hair/fur material. You may not get it looking any better. You may consider redoing the hair with the new hair material.

Schlitzy without hair is a very cool character.

I'll have to look at that tomorrow. I may decide not to use Schlitzy at all and go with something else. But I guess the first thing is to delete the hair and see how he looks and how it affects the render time.

Just turn hair OFF, when rendering, to test it.

Final size: 720 X 405. Really? Isn't a bit small? In these days of YouTube going HD, might as well go for at least 720p.

Render time: 0:41 (V13)

Thought about it... it's 3X the render time and HD Youtubes take a long time to buffer.

Maybe going up to 480p (854x480) could be optional. We can think about it.

Redoing Schlitzy's hair would be the way to go. I redid the hair (quickly, needs work), rendered in 8 min 28 sec. And yes, I didn't do the hair for the slipper yet.

I would go with at least 480p. I mean 480p is essentially the new standard definition

Looks as if it was made to be combined with him... NICE!
*'Fuchur*

We did 'Pass the Ball II' at a resolution of 864 X 486 square-pixel. It is a 'poor-mans' HD format that I use all the time with GREAT results, and minimal render times comparable to D1 720 X 486. (Take a look at PTB2 to see if it will fit your needs... the link is in my signature) Youtube just looks for anything that fits the HD16X9 aspect ratio.

I've got my idea...

I just turned off hair and particles with Schlitzy and the renders are now about 3.5 minutes/frame. I can live with that, and Schlitzy still looks "good"...for Schlitzy, anyway.

I did a couple of tests with some short clips several months ago. My source footage were 720x405 frames, rendered with 9 passes, which I imported into Adobe Premiere. Then I exported movies at 720p resolution and they looked really great. The clips I tested with, looked just as good as the original frames.

864 X 486
720 X 405
854 X 480

All are basically the same, and render times/resolutions should not vary greatly. I'd pick one and update it in the giveaway project sooner than later... before too many people DL

I am already into a 20 hour render

I think we'll make 480x854 an option. That matches YouTube and DVD res. I can edit at that res and I can up-res any that are at 720x405.

Someone try a 480x854 render and see if the camera rotoscope is still matching the set.

Choose what ya want and I will just tweek this render and redo it the size yall choose.
No biggie.

That sounds tall and skinny! 854x480 I presume.

it's been trimming down on the weight, it's an all-pixel diet

I couldn't find an answer in this thread, why are we using jpgs rather than TGAs? TGAs introduce less noise in video compression (lossless) and have an alpha channel allowing for compositing. The set is static, if you render the characters separately and composite over a single background frame, it will abate a lot of the render time issues. Am I missing something?