Here's our first contribution - the beta testers may have seen this one already.
Jeff McCartney did this one. He added a little lens flare action in Blender, and the logo in After Effects.
very cool. I am working on one myself right now. Taking my time with it though but I can't wait to share.
Please do when you are finished!
Thomas I am gonna throw this question your way, (hopefully you don't mind).
I want to give my ring animation a distinct look (basically not your average, neutral color lighting set up). My boss likes the brown so I need to create some interesting light rigs for each shot, but what I really need to do is create a neutral light rig which can be used across all of my four different shots to keep the shots looking consistent, but I need to build upon that to make each shot unique and interesting. My problem is that the light rigs I create to make the metals on the rings look good does not work for the diamonds. And I can't just keep adding lights to make the diamonds light up without ruining the look that I am after for the metal. What I really need to do is create a separate light rig for the diamonds but then the dilemma is how do I superimpose those diamonds on top of the rendered metal(but remember the prongs need to be on top of the diamonds, yet the bottoms of the diamonds need to remain embedded within the shank)? I need the ability to create a selection somehow for the diamonds.
Any ideas as to how I can combine two different rendered animations of inter-woven parts (the diamonds and the shank)?
Hope this wasn't too wordy and confusing for you. I am doing my best to remain clear. :)
I was trying to think of clever work arounds but still have yet to come up with a solution. I thought about using the diamonds to bolean difference the metal part of the ring and then simply rendering those, but then put the diamonds below those but because the parts are interwoven this will not work. And I cannot bolean the diamonds because their look relies completely on the geometry of the model. ???
Hi Zander. what version are you using? Have you tried specular maps? http://keyshot.com/keyshot3/manual/texturing/specular_maps.html
I am currently using Keyshot version 3.0.93
Spec maps wont really do it for me unfortunately (its a good idea but not really a solution for me because I need to render so many rings and I dont want to have to uv my models or create spec maps for all the rings and shots I need to do). I need some way of creating a selection between two "inter-woven" parts. That way I can use two separate HDRIs for my scene. Sorry I don't mean to pin you down if there is no easy solution. I was just thinking you might know of some technique that I was not yet aware of. :-\
I'll have to ask our digital media artists Brian and Jeff if the can think of anything.
Actually I just figured out a clever work around. Okay So I have here a ring (rendering as a 32 bit tiff so I can remove the background). I modified an emitter material and adjusted the colors and unchecked the mapping. I basically made it into a flat shade material that will not show up in reflections or shadows.
This new material needs to be a bright color that has not been used in the rest of the scene because the next step will be to generate an "action" in photoshop (automated set of steps). So now I can render out this scene (animation), then render out the diamonds alone for this scene with their hdri. And then I will run the "action" and basically have photoshop remove all the yellow from the first set of renders (bye using select by color range, select the yellow and then delete). This way I can just composite all the frames together on top of one another in after effects, and booooom there goes the dynamite!
Should work. Now I just need a couple of days to make sure it works.
You may want to use the flat material for this. I thought about this, but it will require to do this for every frame, correct?
well the reason the flat material does not work is because it does not yield a clean selection for me because the color gets reflected back in the metal shank. And there is no way to turn that off using the plan "flat" material.
So I used my new technique on 2 separate frames and it works great! Only problem is I still need to run my "action" on each frame in photoshop. Today was my first time using an "Action" in photoshop. I should be able to automate the process even more, but its pretty awesome to come up with an idea and have it work (even if its not as fast as it probably could be).
Good point re: reflection. This is cool, though.
And I just watched this on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmAJaWELViA
It shows you how to "batch" files. Which allows me to run my recorded "Action" on any number of files, all through automation. This will make this process viable. ;D
KS renders the diamonds much faster without the metal. I think this might actually make up for the time lost by compiling the renders semi-manually.
That should work Zander. The Photoshop "Actions" will probably go pretty fast.
For the next evolution in your workflow, you may want to try the After Effects color key (Green Screen, or in your case "Yellow Screen" :) to chroma key out the green screen to replace the original diamonds with the 2nd HDRI animated diamonds. You may find doing it all in AE gives more control over the edges and the quality of blending the two animation compositions.
Note: You'll want to use the Keylight plugin from the AE menu: Effect > Keying > Keylight
Keylight is a plug-in that comes bundled with After Effects. Lots of tutorials on the web.
Ed
What your gonna have to do is three renders.
1. is your metal(ring)
2. Your Diamonds
3. is a alpha render everything is flat black except your diamonds are going to be flat white.
In AE your bottom layer will be your ring.
Middle layer will be your diamonds
Top layer will be your alpha pass.
You will have to select the middle layer and have it use the alpha layer. What that will do is block out your metal(ring) but keep just the diamonds.
Render out your animation in AE and your done.
Hope that helps.
Tim
easier said then done right?....lol
Ed-Thanks for the tips. I have heard of these methods in After Effects but have yet to try them. Thank you I will look into it.
Yeah Zander - The Keylight (or chroma key or green screen or whatever term you choose to use) just turns the green into transparency.
So you should be able to use just two animation render passes: Your metal + green diamonds HDR#1 animation in the top layer, and your full animation with HDR#2 in the bottom layer. Green becomes transparent revealing your HDR #2 optimized diamonds.
You could probably hide the metal shank in animation render pass #2 for speed because I don't think having it alters the look of the diamonds - if anything it may let more light into the stones.
Basically the same thing as the Photoshop actions method you describe, but done all in AE rather than externally frame by frame.
Let us know how it works out.
Ed
Ed- Your spot on. That is exactly how I am working. I am gonna try and see how the batch and action features work in photoshop since I have already rendered the metal shank with a bright yellow. But I am working on several projects right now, but I will keep you guys informed with my progress. Thanks for the help.
Cheers
-Zander
Ed- Just got to try Chroma Key in AE. Good thinking! This was much easier then trying to set up actions in photoshop. So a big thank you to you for saving me a rather large head ache. ;D
Cool - Love to see the results and hopefully you'll get close to the look of that original ring video you referenced a while back made by the "pros".
You may also want to experiment with adding a little motion blur in AE while you're at it.
Ed
If everything is Flat green except for what ever you want to render won't the green reflect into your metal or diamaonds depending on your shot your doing?
Also you might have some halo's when you start cutting pieces and defringe will have to be applied. That's why I suggest keeping you bottom layer untouched without masks.
At any case good luck. You will find the best process that works for you.
My door is always open if you need some help.
Tim
Ed- I have a little bit of motion blur on there its starting to look pretty decent.
Tim- Thanks for the advice. I was able to bypass the reflection in the metal by creating my own custom "flat" material by altering an "emissive" material. The emissive material has a check box that allows the material to not show up in reflections. Also AE has great tools for green screening. I was able to remove the halo by tweeking the feather options and the edge options in AE.
So everything seems to be working pretty decently. I am still a ways from finishing the project but I will keep you guys posted if I run into more errors.
8)
Thanks Guys!
-Zander
Excellent, glad to hear your making progress on this.
You know I never thought of using a emissive and turning off the reflection. That is clever.
Learn something new everyday.
Can't wait to see your final animation.
Tim