bookmark

First rule of animation WIP: Never promise
when an animation will be complete!

I had some hardware issues today and
found a few things I didn't like about the output,
so I restarted my realism animation over.

I'll post it when it is baked!

It's just a four-second face study, close in.
I got the render time down to 554 seconds/frame.
That's 10 min per frame, but in this close, in Poser?
Not bad.

Here are two stills:

::::: Opera :::::

"That's 10 min per frame, but in this close, in Poser? Not bad." That's not bad at all, Opera. Think about it: Even if it's 10 min per frame for extreme close-ups, you're not going to be rendering every shot in extreme close-up, so the entire movie won't cost that amount on average. Some shots are always going to be more expensive than others, but you can make up for it in other ways. I think the quality there looks fine, and worth 10 min per frame, as long as it isn't a prolonged, lengthy sequence you need at that rendertime.

.

Here is a close-in animation.
It's just 120 frames, 4 seconds.
It demonstrates realism in close
with strand hair.

Hair model: Kate Hair
Render settings:
Raytrace on, 2 bounces
Min Shading Rate 0.00
Pixel samples: 5
Bucket: 32
3 spotlights on face, two casting Depth Map shadows
Map: 256, bias .01, blur 6
Hardware: AMD 3500+; 4GIG RAM; Dual Raptors; XPPro; NVIDIA GeForce5600 256MB
Average rendertime per frame: 525 seconds = 8 min 45 seconds

Quicktime, 1.5 MB

Known problems:

1. flicker in the fine shadows cast by whispy hair.
2. inadvertent animation of items reflected in eyes.
3. head transit slightly too fast, and ease out not deep enough, more overshoot needed

Other than that......
Shheeesh, a lot can go wrong in animation.
But I am not upset, this was just a practice animation.

I was so happy to get the render time down to 525
seconds, on average, by zooming in on
the shadowcams, that I probably re-entered the
flicker zone. The maps were only 256, although
bias was very low (.01).

::::: Opera :::::

Looking good, Opera! It looks like you're getting much more control over the hair movement. Hmmmm... I wonder if there's anything else that can be done in Poser to cure shadowmap flicker without increasing rendertime? In 3dsmax, we have a setting called, "Absolute Map Bias". When enabled, the bias for the shadow map is NOT normalized, but is instead based on a fixed scale expressed in Max units. The value doesn't change during animation. So if scene extents change, like with moving objects, the internal normalization of the shadow maps carry over from frame to frame, preventing flicker and other problems. I wonder if something like that can be done in Poser, perhaps via Python? Probably just a pipe dream. :-(

well, that routine you just described probably contributes to faster renders in Max, also. On the hair movement, I am now of the "use a full can of hair spray, but then back it off a little until the hair just moves enough to trigger realism" school. I started with my discovered setting of .02 for 'position force' but then eased it off to .015. Flicker. Not my friend flicer. I'm rendering the section near the end where the flicker is bad on the cheek, with somewhat kicked-up settings. Will report back tomorrow. :: og ::

""use a full can of hair spray, but then back it off a little until the hair just moves enough to trigger realism" school." LMAO! I think I've been to that school. Probably the same class. ;-) "I'm rendering the section near the end where the flicker is bad on the cheek, with somewhat kicked-up settings. Will report back tomorrow." Definitely want to see the results. What will you do if you can't get it resolved?

My overnight try actually made it worse, I will do a succession of trial and error later today. I have not attempted to scale up, yet. "What will you do if you can't get it resolved?" Are you available to fly to Pasadena and spend a week getting me up the hill on Max? ::::: Opera :::::

"do you guys know about zooming in on the shadowcams, which then enables you to set the map size lower and get the same resolution, thereby reducing render time? If I didn't have that trick, the rendertime in my clip above would be about 20% longer." No. Is this a P6 thing or is it adaptable to earlier versions? This is the first I've heard of it so I'm completely clueless about what it is or how it works.

http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2572011 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2572420 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2476115 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1087694 Miss Nancy and Yansaen have helped me understand that you can control the way a light casts its shadows. Mostly, you can zoom in on the subject, and therefore the render engine does a better job on the actual target, thus reducing the map size necessary to get equivelent resolution. On the work I've posted in this thread, I've been able to reduce the map size on lights down from 2048 or 1024 to as low as 256, thus knocking down render time. However, this has caused flicker to reemerge. I am working on that issue now. ::::: Opera :::::

opera, i see still no cure to the excited hair (see her left neck) :(

Thanks. That's quite intriguing.

"opera, i see still no cure to the excited hair (see her left neck)" Hmmm. I thought that was the shadow flicker causing it to look restless, but you may be right. The monitor I'm viewing with is a bit dark, so it's hard to see details in the shadow areas of that scene. Opera, might wanna check that hair group, and perhaps play a bit more with the dampening settings for it. As for shadow flicker, I'd be willing to bet there's a mathematical cure to it somewhere, using shadow map size. It might have something to do with the distance of the light from the object, mulitplied by whatever, gives you the correct map size to use for the scene. I don't know.

Attached Link: http://www.this-wonderful-life.com/photo-shoot.htm

Some of the best dynamic hair I've ever seen was done by the guy at the link above. Check out the videos of the girl at the bottom of that page (divx required). Notice how the hair moves so perfectly subtle and realistic. It's not jumpy or noisy. I've never been able to get it to do this with Poser dynamic hair. I wish I knew settings that could make it move like that, although Operaguy is doing a much better job that I have ever been able to do anyway. Maxxx, that animation in the link above was done in 3dsmax also. Can you tell if he's using the same hair plugin you are, or is it something else?

Attached Link: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/229960

***"Maxxx, that animation in the link above was done in 3dsmax also. Can you tell if he's using the same hair plugin you are, or is it something else?"*** That's Liam Kemp's "This Wonderful Life". It's a short movie he did in 3dsmax that won some awards, etc. Very well done. The HDRI render you refer to was done with the Vray rendering engine for Max I believe. As for the hair, I recall reading an article about this, in which he says he used a plugin called, Shag:Hair to create the strand-based hair. Shag:Hair is now known as HairFX, and is a different solution than what I've been using in my tests. I don't have that plugin. The one I'm using is "Hair and Fur", and it comes standard with 3dsmax version 7.5 and higher. I don't really know what the differences are, but from what I hear, HairFX is better. It also costs around $400 at Turbosquid. :-P

thanks for pointing out that it might not be flicker, but simply shadow of restless hair. I will look into it. I have not yet fiddled with the dampers, because collision is off here. The residual tiny hair movements might be normal....her head is moving a little. ::::: Opera :::::

on that video...the one with the punk red hair.... IMO it's not hair animation, nor hair model, that convinces. It's the fact that the ambient light in the room, plus the light on her skin, plus the light on the hair, ALL AGREE. Add to that terrific animation of the eye, including the rim of the eye. I'd LOVE to see the graph on that blink. And of course, a grand trick, one that one can only take so far....a hand-held camera, which masks a lot of sin. Alltogether a crafty and craft-worthy job. ::::: Opera ::::

"IMO it's not hair animation, nor hair model, that convinces. It's the fact that the ambient light in the room, plus the light on her skin, plus the light on the hair, ALL AGREE." Ah, the beauty of HDRI. Note that he only used HDRI in that short test clip though, not in the final production, which lasts about 10 min I think. For the production work, he used something like 40 spotlights in a dome to simulate outdoors lighting, and a large direct light for the sun. I do like the way the hair moves just a little when she tilts her head though, that was nice work. Very natural. The eye movement, however, is out of this world. Spot-on as far as I can tell.

yes, there was some subtle hair movement which worked. Greg, I'm going to be keeping my animations indoors for a while, but then they are going outside to play. I'll be all over that HDRI/dome stuff when the time comes. Looking forward to it. [[he says as he returns to the mysteries of deep shadows]] I'm starting to believe there is very little true flicker in the animation. There is no shadow shake unless hair is moving. More later. ::::: Opera :::::

I thought the hair looked incredible in that WOnderful Life movie, but the thing that impressed me the most was in regard to what Operaguy is experiencing with Poser's dynamic hair. The hair in that Wonderful Life clip only moved a little, but that's the point. It moved when it HAD to, then stopped, and it wasn't jumping around afterwards. The thing with Poser dynamic hair is that it seems to move from start to finish, regardless if the model is moving it's head or not. What I'm trying to say is that it's very hard to find settings to keep Poser's dynamic hair from acting like WATER, instead of hair. It seems like it's based on fluid dynamics rather than hair dynamics.

having you been actually experimenting with the damping, jimbo? I've not had time to resume my attempts to still the hair. However, LEAVING COLLISION aside for the moment, it is NOT hard to get it to stop moving when the head moves, and that's without touching the damping controls. The reason the hair in my animation above is constantly in motion is because SHE is always in motion, even when it looks like a stop. Just increment up the setting for "Position Force" and you'll get it to be quite steady. If you've been working with the damping controls, and are so inclined, please feed me anything you've learned. I'm about to undertake an actual production scene with two characters, very active, both with strand hair (tho his is short). Thanks ::::: Opera :::::

"What I'm trying to say is that it's very hard to find settings to keep Poser's dynamic hair from acting like WATER, instead of hair. It seems like it's based on fluid dynamics rather than hair dynamics." Actually, strand-based hair in 3dsmax will react the same way if you don't use the proper settings. Poser's dynamic hair is not doing anything unheard of, it's just that the default dynamics settings need to be adjusted to get the reaction you're looking for. Remember, Jimbo, there's no magic button to make things look right. Takes a lot of time to customize settings, no matter what application you are using. That's the one thing that's universal in computer graphics. ;-) I'm sure Liam spent many hours getting the hair to look and behave as it does in that clip.

Ugh. My last post got mussed up. Let me try this again... Operaguy, I had been playing with the dynamics options in the Poser hair room, but everything I come up with is either moving about too much, or not enough. I'll keep at it. Maxxx, if I had 3dsmax, do you see any benefit of importing Poser's dynamic hair in a PZ3 animation over using the strand hair already in place in Max? With Carrara, importing a PZ3 with dynamic hair animations seems not as efficient as just rendering it within Poser. Of course, Carrara doesn't have it's own strand hair system, so there's no other option there.

Jimbo, as Maxx said, you have to be very patient and methodical to learn to control hair in the Poser hair room. But it IS a good tool; it is attainable. I would suggest starting with rock solid dynamic hair, and then only changing one variable at a time, in increments, until you see it affect things. My suggestion is to start with "Position Force" at a high value, say .03 which should make it not move at all in a simple animation. Then, lower it gradually until you get just a little motion. Once you gague the temperment of "Position Force" you could try altering the damping settings. It might take 200 renders to get to first base, or second. ::::: Opera :::::

"Maxxx, if I had 3dsmax, do you see any benefit of importing Poser's dynamic hair in a PZ3 animation over using the strand hair already in place in Max?" Not sure I'm following what you mean here. Do you mean like using a plugin, such as Bodystudio, to import a poser animation with dynamic hair? If so, I guess that could be beneficial if you had to use Poser for the animating, but wanted to render in Max. I used Bodystudio myself a while back, and it worked as advertised, but hosting the .pz3 scene file in the Max environment was cumbersome, and seemed to slow down the workflow. Most Poser meshes are very heavy compared to working with models that take advantage of Max's native subdivision surface modifiers.

I think that Poser hair is one of those things that very few will master. There is so much unpredicability that it will drive most sane people nuts. Unlike animation with bones or cloth, where you know what you did wrong most of the time. The hair room is built on random number generators. Where any thing can happen and usually does, for me that is. Dale

Attached Link: http://www.joealter.com/newSite/rendering.htm

Interesting thread.

Some things that need to be mentioned:

The "Hair/Fur" plugin that Maxxmodelz is using in 3dsmax is basically the exact same implimentation of Joe Alter's popular "Shave and a Haircut" CG package that Maya uses. This is not the same as the PaintFX hair that Nemirc is showing (see link). It's the same thing, adapted, and given a new name for use in 3dsmax. I've also heard that this is the same hair platform used to create Cinema4D's new hair plugin. Although I don't know it for a fact, I believe I read an article where Joe himself basically accused Maxxon of robbing his invention, without giving him due credit.

This kind of hair is an atmospheric effect, and meant primarily for use in professional compositing. So if you're not using layers or compositing techniques with it, chances are you're not getting it's full potential and power.

From what I can see, Poser's hair system is nowhere near the maturity of Joe Alter's award-winning hair dynamics system, so the comparison of the two is quite unfair at this stage. Poser's hair implimentation is fairly young, is it not? Having only been in existance for a couple versions. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but that's the information I gathered.

Message edited on: 02/14/2006 21:31

As one of the Poser hair guys in this thread, I don't mind going up aginst Joe in all his namifestations! Frankly, it might be the stronger render engines, producing lower times, that makes the other guys look so good. If it weren't for that..... Poser hair room ain't no toy. :::: Opera ::::

Well, I've never used Poser's hair system, so I don't know if it's a "toy" or not. I've never used Shave either, but what I'm saying is that I have seen Joe's hair system used in serious studio production work many times, in both movies and television, so I know it's capabilities are production-proven. It's also a testimony to it's success that 3 of the 4 biggest applications in 3D/fx have adopted it's use, much like MentalRay, which no one disputes is one of the best renderers available. I can't say the same thing about Poser's hair system, because so far I haven't seen it used successfully in any serious production work.

It could be a powerful tool, but so far, I've only seen it used very little, in short clips or stills, and nothing that I have seen overly impressed me. Not talking about the examples in this thread, I'm talking about over all.

Message edited on: 02/14/2006 22:01

Poser won't be running with that crowd. I recently had an hour-long conversation with someone deep in the 3D world here in Los Angeles, and he stated that Poser is used for pre-vis, in commercials, for story-boarding, etc., but that no pro would ever credit it or even admit it...it's not considered a correct tool. No problem. The app is barely out of the hobby incubator. When compared with Joe's system, I wouldn't even attempt to describe it as "a powerful tool." I just know I am getting results, which can be seen in posts 24 and 56 above. I thought you had some sort of actual factual comparison, because of your sentence "From what I can see, Poser's hair system is nowhere near...". ::::: Opera :::::

The studio I worked for a couple years ago wouldn't touch Poser, even for PreViz. It was just a messy application that seemed very unstable and limited to work with. It was actually quicker for us to previz shots with a Biped skeleton from 3ds CharacterStudio, which was about all we used 3dsmax for at the time. All final shots were usually done with Maya or XSI. Oh, come to think of it, I believe we did use Max for certain FX comps and matte creation along the way too.

At any rate, I'd be interested to know what compositing options you have with Poser's hair system. Can you run it in a buffer mode, where the hair could be lit and comped into the frame seperately in post? If you render it as geometry, does Poser have the ability to run it as a seperate pass from the scene geometry?

Perhaps even more important than all this fuss over how fast it renders is how well it behaves with important effects, such as motion blur.

Message edited on: 02/15/2006 07:29

with animation, concern over render time is never a fuss. I don't engage motion blur in Poser, although it is an option. It is better to run the render straight and use the motion blur effect in After Effects. Poser can calculate DOF as well, but same thing: generate a depth map in poser and engage in After Effects, that's much better. In a similar vein, muti-pass rendering functions fine in Poser, as it has a shadow catcher function and any combination of items can be made visible/invisible. There are some who have even worked out ways to use multi-pass strictly on a distance-from-camera layer basis. I have never needed to go that far. The principle advantage is that you if during composite you find one of the layers has a problem, you only need to re-render that layer. Might be going to multi-pass for that reason at some point. The hair WILL render in full motion all by itself; I guess you could render just the hair. I have no idea if this would work okay; I doubt if it would save any raw render time. What is key is: you can make the hair invisible to raytrace. That way, if you need raytrace on for reflection, or anything else, you don't suffer a hit on the hair. An important policy has to do with the simulation. If collision is not on, simulation (calculation of the hair motion prior to render) goes very fast. With collision on, it can bog down, but there is a fine proxy trick: you can calculate over a sphere or a low-res cage of the head, thus reducing sim time significantly. As to your experience of "wouldn't touch it" a few years ago, I think that the contrast with it now being used 'informally' speaks a lot about how far the app has come. I saw a commercial yesterday on the olympics that was definitely at least begun in Poser, some of the models were definitely from there. Might have been rendered elsewhere. ::::: Opera :::::

I think Poser is a great application for what it is. A hobbyists tool. What other application in it's price range has what it has? Like a powerful node based shader system that rivals anything the high end apps can do in the way of shading, plus a strand hair and dynamic cloth system on top of that? Come on, it's one of the best apps you can get for under $300. The fact that it's overlooked by the pros isn't of any consequence really to individuals looking to make a short movie on their own. Sure, I think the high end stuff looks somewhat more refined and perfected, but think about the money and effort that one must put into the software to get that result. Then compare that to what the Poser users are achieving for under $300, and it's a wash. If I had the money and time, I'd buy something like Maya or 3dsmax, take a training course, and use it to WOW people. But if I just wanted to transform my ideas into something creative as quickly and efficiently as possible, I'd use Poser. Why not?

Poser "is known as" a hobbyist's tool by many. It is a hobby for many. But it is already being used by professionals for end results. If you also count all those useing Poser to stage assets and pose them, maybe even animate before exporting to Max, Maya, Carrara, etc., then it is way beyond hobbyist. I HAVE the money for at least XSI basic or Messiah and the first level of Max. Certainly, for Carrara. So for me, that is not the issue. The issue is, I am already getting results usable on a professional level, and so much invested in the Poser learning curve, I am only seeking add-ons, such as an alternate render platform at this time. I am unfortunate in my choice of style that dynamic hair and skin realism in close-up is significant, but lucky in that I do not need big effects, structures, aircraft, space travel, etc. All my final composite work is done in After Effects, so it is just the raw render which I am seeking to kick up. ::::: Opera :::::

"I am unfortunate in my choice of style" That is a key statement (although I don't know that the word "unfortunate" belongs here). Our choice of style determines the value of everything.

I thought strand hair was only needed when you wanted to use something like wind or other high dramatic things. If all you're doing is moving the character's head a little bit, why do you even need dynamic hair? Couldn't you get a good prop hair with movement morphs to get a realistic effect for soemthing like that? Plus, with all the rendering time you'd save yourself by not using strand hair, you can make the lighting and skin all the more realistic!! Think about it that way too.

I only use prop hair for stills, and it has to be great prop hair. Ironically, in my closeup work, this hair also takes a long time to render, because I want to resolve individual strands. Have you ever tried to morph prop hair for animation? Believe me, I put an enormous amount of time into trying to do it. IMO, you can't get convincing movement with prop hair. Now about your point to 'just move the character's head a little'....for realism you need to have the hair jostle or react just a trifle. It can't be helmet hair. I guess the exception I would make would be for very short hair when it is clear the hair DOES NOT MOVE at all when the character moves. Then, I might try prop hair. justpatric, please note, my opinions on this have to be taken in the context of my chosen style, closups, gestures, etc. as in post 56 above. For medium and long shots, not as critical. ::::: Opera :::::

"why do you even need dynamic hair? Couldn't you get a good prop hair with movement morphs to get a realistic effect for soemthing like that?" He wants to do really extreme close-ups of the face and hair in his shots. 99% of transmapped "prop" hair will fail under that close scrutiny. In other words, it will look totally fake. However, it could pass if the close-up shots were brief, with motion blur to distract from the obvious flaws.

"Have you ever tried to morph prop hair for animation?" Have you tried "sassy hair 2"? It has awesome morphs that I was able to get relatively convincing motion from. It's a medium-length hair, but the textures for it are not going to hold up to very close-up shots where movement is minimal. I think worrying about several strands moving about slightly on the head when a character just flinches or moves ever so subtle is absurd for a one-man-show, John. Especially when most people (audience) won't give a shit, or even notice it. They'll be looking at the eyes and skin (as most people do when they see a face up close), and judging the realism by that. Eyes are the most convincing part in realism. However, you are aiming for ultra-super-hyper realism for hair it seems, so to that I wish you the best of luck! Glad I'm not working on such a task. LOL! ;-)

I like wild hair as prop hair for stills, but I tried animating it, no go. "worrying about several strands moving about ..." I am overshooting on obsession so in order to push the envelope, so that when I pull back everything still looks great and works. I know that is probably making people nuts, but that's my deal. ::::: Opera :::::

"I know that is probably making people nuts, but that's my deal." As long as it's not driving you nuts, it's ok. ;-P