Attached Link: http://www.fairweathertempest.com/candle.avi

this is just a short 2 sec. animation I've been working on, my first real excursion into making things move ...animating the lighting, textures etc. to produce a convincing candle... still have some things I'd like to tweak, but right now I'm tired of looking at it ;o)... so I thought I'd share and maybe get some feedback... Please right click and 'save target as'.... all that usual stuff... and loop it on playback... Thanks for taking a peek... P.S. was also using this to test out the compression codecs and how all that worked. This was originally rendered and saved as an uncompressed QT .mov, 24 fps, around 9 megs... re-opened in C4Pro and saved as a Divx encoded .avi... 97kb... not much noticable quality loss... I thought that was pretty cool...

Yeah, it's very cool. I like the "jumping" shadows especially. Someone has already mentioned that the flame is a bit out of scale (firey) and should be more of a teardrop shape. I would also like to add that real candlelight isn't white, it is actually a very warm yellow/brown. It might help you to download this simple jpeg of the Kelvin scale:
http://www.lightenergysource.com/LES%20-%20Kelvin%20Scale_small1.jpg
Candle light is at the bottom. When selecting your light color try sampling this Kelvin scale with the eyedropper tool (load the jpg into Carrara and then click/drag the little triangle next to the color chip). With a warmer dimmer light, the flame will be easier to see and take focus. The inner wax is brighter and whiter than the flame itself!

Nice animation.
holly

Message edited on: 01/17/2005 10:18

Very cool little animation. The dancing light and shadow is very convincing. It looks like someone has just walked by the candle and the turbulence in the air is whipping the candle flame around. As for the color temperature that hdaggers mentions -- he's absolutely correct that candle light is very orange compared to sunlight, or even compared to your halogen desk lamp. But one thing to remember in film and video production is that a cinematographer (or videographer) should balance the light in a scene and match it to the film stock (or white balance the video camera). What this means is that the cinematographer is going to determine what color temp of light in a scene is supposed to be "white" and then either filter the lens or white balance the camera to that color temp. (In the old days of film, you'd use "daylight balanced" or "tungsten balanced" film and then use color correction filters in the filter pack to reach proper color balance. Nowadays, you point your camera at a white card under the light of the scene, press the white balance button, and poof! you're color balanced!) All of this is to say that you could white balance your image to the candle light, and since the human eye automatically white balances to whatever light source you're under, so your image is subjectively correct. Of course, often a cinematographer will intentionally balance the image to a cooler color (higher on the Kelvin scale -- contrary to common sense) to allow the candle flame to appear more orange. It's all a matter of taste. I'm really impressed with the compression, by the way. Is this the DivX codec you download or did it come bundled with C4? - Dex

I honestly can't tell you for sure... but I would guess it's the downloaded version. I never messed with animation enough to know what came standard with C4. I know that some time ago, I did download a divx player and codec. and, actually, the candle light is a yellow/orange color... the walls and floor are pure white...

Message edited on: 01/19/2005 17:17

Well then, may I ask you a question on how the effect of translucency was done? Or it's just some kind of fake with additional light source? And does c4 have the possibility to simulate such effects as translucency and transparency falloff? real_ratibor