From your latest newsletter announcing your KeyShot 3 Preview - World Premier at Planet PTC in Las Vegas:
"Exclusively for Planet PTC attendees, we are letting you catch the very first glimpse of KeyShot 3. Once again, we are out to further revolutionize the visualization process. This time, it is animation.
Simple, fast and accurate, KeyShot 3 allows any designer and engineer to create animations of their designs with the same photographic quality of still images. Stop by our booth, and be amazed. Once again."
Does this mean animation will be part of the Keyshot core package?! :o
Wow, that would answer one of my questions!
http://keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=2022.msg7529#msg7529
Animation will be sold separately.
This is great news. We have been wanting animation for some time. Is there any approximate date for release?
Animation ok, but I hope that there will still be development in the Keyshot rendering field. (speed, extend network rendering (also for realtime), improve texuring, etc)
I remember that it turned out to be a big disappointment when Hypermove came out.
That was the end of Hypershot and Hypermove for me and I returned to the "old Hypershot" (which is Keyshot)
Simple animations can be done by a lot of programs, the one that is shown in the KS3 preview is very easy to do in Solidworks also.
We just need the interface to render it with the same ease as Keyshot does the still images.
In my opinion in the logic of Keyshot you should do the same for animations: not create them in Keyshot but only render them in keyshot in a way that is a lot easier and more inuitive than in other programs.
so: import animation from an animation program - texturing/material - setup camera path - (realtime preview) - render
But maybe this is just how it is going to be......?
Eric there is animation and there is animation!
Yes that example could probably be done in Solidworks, but it would take a hell of a lot of setting up. Like many others I am very interested in this development for Keyshot. HyperMove was a total dismal failure in my eyes - overpriced, buggy, and too limited for the price. I did consider buying it but in the end opted for Modo. I think that is maybe going to be the issue for many - HyperMove promised a lot but delivered little, so those of us that found we did have a need started looking for alternatives, and as a Solidworks user Modo was the obvious answer.
Having said all that though, Modo does have a fairly steep learning curve (compared to Keyshot) and getting renders like you get from Keyshot is not immediately obvious - it takes a good deal of time and practise.
I'll be very interested to see how Keyshot's animation compares in terms of ease of use and cost.
We know exactly what NOT to do when it comes to animation.
Also @eric, we will of course continue to improve the rendering engine.
I'm very excited by the possibility of KeyShot Animation! And I trust the KS team to do it right- they have so far! I've been doing a lot of stop-motion animation in KeyShot lately, fortunately for my client's website, so the images are small. It can be done now in KS, but it's painstaking and you really have to run a log of motion positions. The nastiest was a "rotative-translation" for want of a better description, in which a 3 cm pitch four-start threaded thumb-nut drives another component along a threaded shaft. Because of the fast pitch I had to render the nut in 2 degree increments, with corresponding travel to match the pitch. But, it worked, and I'll share it as soon as my client approves public release.
I'll mention that I also use SimLab Animator, which is very good, but I use it as I can output as a 3D-PDF. These are for active operator manuals.
I'm really lloking forward to KeyShot Animation!! It's going to be a powerful tool for us, and an additional profit center for KS and ourselves to boot.
Bill G
Ok i think we are on the same line.
I just wanted to be sure that the development direction of Keyshot will not be only towards animation.
Of course if you can convince me in the same way that Keyshot convinced me to become the renderer we use the most it would be great.
On the other hand: If I look at what we use Keyshot for now:
set up a very quick scene and render it directly with realtime screenshot.
It's really great and it can never be quick enough. So please keep this strong features.
I Also tried Showcase. It looks rather spectacular and also is intuitive, but it just takes much longer to load and set up a model.
Then you already loose me.
We notice ourselves less and less using the render button in Keyshot. Why? Because at the moment you hit the render button your workstation is blocked for other work.
Thats also what bothers me in animation programs.
I think that before you start the animation introduction you should add the possibility to render while you can flexible add more workstations to the job. So serious flexible network rendering.
If I have to do serious animation with lots of moving objects and a large storyboard I use 3DSmax.
If I have to do serious flexible network rendering I use Maxwell.
If I have to do a quick simple technical simulation animation I use Solidworks
If I have do do a quick good quality visualisation I use Keyshot.
The last is by far the most fun and easiest to use.
So I wonder is Keyshot's next release strong enough to make me get rid of Maxwell or 3DSmax?
I surely hope so because I'd rather pay my anual license fee's to a strong Keyshot than keeping 3 different programs.
If i cannot get rid of one of the other programs, I'd rather have a Keyshot that improves what it is already good at.
Mind that the above is not criticism towards the Keyshot team.
We all just want to improve the program that we love the most!
Speedster just mentioned the simlab animation software.. I think they have setup a unique system, which for me, was very powerful in rendering animations that were set to take roughly 3-4 days of my dual quadcore xeon with a quadro fx 5600.. The system essentially was a Movie compiler, so rendering the animation was just rendering the sequence with the keyshot render engine in structured folders, then a movie compiler to manage the folders into a movie.. I could render different parts and sequences with different values... Return and re-render and replace very specific sections without redoing and entire set...I could break out a small focus sections and render them at extremly high detailed values... Worth takin a look and considering...
I like the SimLab two-step process as well, because you can also import the rendered sequential frames into a program like Adobe AfterEffects, do additional post work & effects layers, and make the final movie from AE.
Ed
Can you explain how to render a sequence from Simlab composer using the Keyshot renderer?
Can this be done automatically?
The simlab render engine "IS" the luxion render engine. No realtime though, and dont know what version they have licensed.
that would be cool animation for keyshot nice im waiting on the release date to try it out
I am using 3D Via composer for 3D animations, which is relatively simple to learn/use .. though the end result also looks quite simple. No real shadow/reflection/... So I am very curious to see the interface, the work-flow, the limitations, ...
I for one know that the way a camera moves is VERY important. And 3D Via got it wrong. There is no "speed up" and "speed down" motion from the camera. It just starts moving 100% speed ... so it's not fluent.
It will be interesting to see which of all these animation options will be in KS3 ...
great!!! im using and teaching rhino, and if KS3 can help with the animation i can avoid to export to cinema 4d for complex animation... i hope in the next future will be possible to add or changed materials even to elements exported in the some layer. this i find bad about KS. hope the layer property can be more flexible, without the encessity to import and re-import single elements. ;D
dear people from Keyshot...i hope u can make sure that ur animation tools can read and import animation from Daz 3d. it will be possible do amazing animation then thanks in advance
Can you output as FBX?
Quote from: stef on August 05, 2011, 05:58:25 AM
great!!! im using and teaching rhino, and if KS3 can help with the animation i can avoid to export to cinema 4d for complex animation... i hope in the next future will be possible to add or changed materials even to elements exported in the some layer. this i find bad about KS. hope the layer property can be more flexible, without the encessity to import and re-import single elements. ;D
I am not sure what you mean. Please explain.
sorry but english is not my first language, there4 you do not get what i mean...
daz 3d can be imported characters perfectly with texture in keyshot, while in other programs need to reapply all textures. daz 3d is good and easy to create animations. lets said that i want an animation in Ks: where i have imported in KS a motorbike (im product and vehicle designer) and i would like to import in the Ks scene three "people" (mechanics) that walk around the bike. i would love to import the rigging and ANIMATION done in daz 3d tools puppeteers - so if i do the animation in daz 3d of this 3 guys walking around the bike and then export the animation in Ks, I WILL OBTAIN:
my motorbike place in a Ks beauty environment with fantastic materials and easy labelling
3 mechanics previously animated n daz3d and able to walk around the scene and the bike. this will allow me to create another new animation in Ks with maybe some of the motorbike marts animated directly in ks this time. so i will obtain a nice video for my client or my website.
hope this part is clear...
as i guess Ks animation tool want be ready jet for rigging..(maybe not even the target) but the possibility to import rigged parts would be lovely.
even in product design maybe u need to create an animation of an hand interacting with different parts of an object or even in architecture animation with people walking around...so maybe Ks can be good to move and animate objects bits, but not in animate hands,people etc...(yet). so if at list can interact and be flexible to import file from daz. would be great.
about the layers:
when i import a motorbike for example modelled in rhino or others i usually got 3 or 4 main layers with inside many leyers:
1 front bike
2 engine metal parts
3 accessories parts
4 rear part
each of this main layer has inside many sub-layers
the problem is: when i import all of it in Ks it come in as one object and it is impossible to unlink or apply two different materials to two different objects in the some layer.
to be empiric: if i have a layer call front as soon as i apply a materials to this layer "front" all object inside will take that material assigned without the possibility to change it even slightly to the single elements inside.
as Ks has a better preview of an object sometime you realised things whe u see the product "for real" in Ks - compare with native rhinoceros shading or rendering.
you are not able to change "on spot" a colour part of an object in Ks. if i have six rims in a layer i can not decide to change directly in Ks their colours..maybe have some of them slightly darker to compensate lights, or make all 6 of them different based on my need and sensation/client requirements
i guess Ks need to improve on this part and let more flexibility instead we loosing time 8Ks is beauty because is fast!). should avoid to make people go back and forwards between Ks and modelling program 20 times. unlink the materials to different objects plased even on the some layers would be nice. some thing for the freedom to "move" objects, example wheels of a car, or opening doors...without import them as separate scene.
hope im clear now...instead im sorry, i will try to simplify more my concept in an acceptable english. :P thanks for ur time anyway and thanks for creating Ks;)