If you click on the link you can see what I am going to be talking about (1.5meg mpeg). First the good news. I have found it to be faster to make sequences than movies. Infact I have found it to be over 5x faster to have a sequence then a movie. The 8sec movie above was 4 hours to render vs 22hrs with a 320x200 cinepac avi. I rendered it into a 640x400 jpec sequence. The best part of this is that you dont have to worry about interlace when you integrate it with tv. Just use your editor to make the movie (or something like after effects). It took my Avid only 3 min to put the pics together into a movie. I then exported it out so I could upload it in a smaller size. Anyway it just goes to show how much time avi compression takes. When I imported it I had the avid resize it to 720x486 and saw no real distortion. Wahoo! broadcast quality from home with reasonable render times. Now forget about the composition, the textures, etc (they are all temps). This is going to be my biggest complaint about carrara...WHAT IS UP WITH THAT CRAPPY MOTION BLUR???? Carrara has the worst motion blur I have ever seen. Granted I had it set to high, but motion blur is worthless as a post render effect (IMHO). The next version is going to use a Force Motion Blur in after effects instead of Carraras. Another point about motion blur: If you freeze the mpeg you can see how the motion blur was rendered in blocks..why does it do that? Will that change if I use the raytracer instead of the hybrid renderer? Anyway as a word of encouragement to some of you who want to do this stuff professionally but doubt your talent: Look at my big piece of crap I made. I was able to snag a fairly big client with that crappy mpeg :) Of course the problem is I have 1 month to make a GOOD :30 sec spot and I cant use a 3d program to save my life yet :) Well pressure is the best teacher...else I may have to pay one of you to finish it for me if I fail miserably...any volenteers? :) Well Im off to model the semi...how card can it be?

Well that didnt work so hot...heres the url: http://brenthomer.tripod.com/trailer.mpg

nicely done...... sorry I really can't answer any of your questions though. And if that "Crappy Animation" your words not mine landed you a job I'd say It's not so crappy after all :) I want to get into the animation side of Carrara but first feel like I should learn how to model. (I can't even model a square box) Stace

Darn - I cant seem to DL or Open the file.. I get an error from Media Player.. "Cannot open. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again." hmm... The path is correct? Clint

-stacy: Remember to look at stuff honestly, if you always believe what people say you cant improve :) As for modeling consider maybe trying other programs. I model 90% of my stuff in Nendo b/c it is just so much easier. I am scared b/c I will need to use splines to model the rig, but I will always use nendo as a base for my vertex models. No one program does it all, the best. Download here :) http://brenthomer.tripod.com/trailer.mpeg for somereason tripod just started demanding the whole .mpeg suffix.

Greta information on the render tyimes! Thanks for passing that along. Nice animation. Good camera movement.... Yea, The motion blur in Carrara is kinda bla. Go for After Effects! Congrats on the paying gig! I need another one of those! ;) Good luck! Clint

Looks cool. Also, very cool info about the sequenced images as opposed to the AVI; very good to know. I use RD3D at home to build animations for work frequently; I'm always looking for a way to reduce render times. One thing I'd really recommend, though, is that you use bezier curves in the camera's motion path; it's not possible in the real world for a camera rig to move in one direction and then suddenly be moving in another. You'd kill the camera operator with the inertia. I'd also suggest that you keep the camera lower to the ground; the mountain in the background looks tiny when you're up higher looking down on it and the truck. Very cool about getting the gig -- gotta love the fact that 3D still wows people -- even if in the rough, early stages you have in this mpeg. Awesome job!