LST radiator - Control knob explosion

[DriesV]

This is my first entry in the KeyShot VR contest.
http://driesv.dommel.be/KeyShotVR-contest/LST-Plus/LST-Plus-knobEXP.html
---EDIT 16/12/2012---
Additional VR
http://driesv.dommel.be/KeyShotVR-contest/LST-Plus/LST-Plus-showcase.html

The VR shows the explosion (and putting back together ) of the external control knob assembly of an LST radiator. All in interactive turntable mode of course. 

LST stands for Low Surface Temperature.
These radiators are sold in the UK to retirement homes, kindergartens, and other places where you don't want people to get body parts burned by glaring hot heating elements.

I thought it was nice to show you how the external control knob is fitted on the internal thermostatic head.

I hope you like it!

Modeling software used: SolidWorks 2013
Base frames for VR were rendered out using KeyShot Animation and then put into the VR folder. I edited the html file accordingly.

@Luxion: do I need to send you the original uploaded html file and folder?

greetings,
Dries

[PhilippeV8]

Funcky !

[guest84672]

Hi Dries - all good. Thanks for sharing. Looks great.

[DriesV]

Thanks for the comments.

I made another VR today. It gives you the chance to take the whole product for a spin. Have fun!
http://driesv.dommel.be/KeyShotVR-contest/LST-Plus/LST-Plus-showcase.html

Btw, KeyShot VR is such a great way to create immersive product presentations.
I'll definitely show these VR's to the marketing guys tomorrow. 

URL of VR also added to original post.

greetings,
Dries

[guest84672]

Awesome - thank you.

[DriesV]

Just wondering, are there other VRs coming up? Or are there just 8 entries?
I was kinda hoping to see how other people would use this tool in creative ways...

Dries

[guest84672]

Honestly, we are a bit surprised about the small amounts of entries. I expected much more, since it is so much easier and quicker than rendering out a full animation.

[DriesV]

Yes, I'm surprised as well. Final rendering of 75 frames for my first VR took just over 4.5 hours (with GI quality @ 3, just to be absolutely sure about consistent quality). And that's on a system with 6 cores.
Second VR took around 6.5 hours till completion for 324 renders (GI @ 1).

Dries

[DriesV]

One thing that I DID miss -and I can imagine a lot of people would use it- was a feature to render out a specific range of images for the VR. That way you can spread out the rendering of the VR over multiple periods and fill the VR folder as you go. This would also imply that the VR setup should be saved with the scene (I guess now that doesn't happen?).

With the current state of the add on, making a VR is a 1 GO thing. I can imagine some people find that a hidrance, especially for higher resolution VRs.

In fact, I use the frame range option a lot with the animation add on.

Dries

[guest84672]

VR setup does get saved with the scene. A turntable VR only needs a maximum of 36 frames, and resolution doesn't have to be higher than 800 by 800. Let it rip while you sleep!

[supermoon]

One thing that I DID miss -and I can imagine a lot of people would use it- was a feature to render out a specific range of images for the VR. That way you can spread out the rendering of the VR over multiple periods and fill the VR folder as you go. This would also imply that the VR setup should be saved with the scene (I guess now that doesn't happen?).

With the current state of the add on, making a VR is a 1 GO thing. I can imagine some people find that a hidrance, especially for higher resolution VRs.

In fact, I use the frame range option a lot with the animation add on.

Dries

Theres actually a sneaky work around for this that I figured out.

1. set up your scene and VR settings and save. Turn OFF all objects in scene (plus shadows etc) so you just have a white background, then Render out. Then DO NOT SAVE. Because it is rendering a flat white scene, it should only take a couple of minutes to whizz through.

You will use this for the code only. Seeing as the script looks at the jpeg numbers you can switch the blank frames out for actual frames and the script wont know any difference.

2. Open your last save and then tweak the start/finish angles to only a portion of your turntable. For example, reduce the angle to 180 to render out just half of your turn table in one sitting (don't forget to adjust the frames as necessary, in this case by half). These jpegs can then be copied into the folder that's linked to your first RV render.

3. Do the same but for the other 180 degrees of the turntable and then add these to the same folder as above. Be careful to make sure that they are copied in the right order.

This way you can render out your turntable in however many portions you want (but only if your maths is up to scratch)

[DriesV]

One thing that I DID miss -and I can imagine a lot of people would use it- was a feature to render out a specific range of images for the VR. That way you can spread out the rendering of the VR over multiple periods and fill the VR folder as you go. This would also imply that the VR setup should be saved with the scene (I guess now that doesn't happen?).

With the current state of the add on, making a VR is a 1 GO thing. I can imagine some people find that a hidrance, especially for higher resolution VRs.

In fact, I use the frame range option a lot with the animation add on.

Dries

Theres actually a sneaky work around for this that I figured out.

1. set up your scene and VR settings and save. Turn OFF all objects in scene (plus shadows etc) so you just have a white background, then Render out. Then DO NOT SAVE. Because it is rendering a flat white scene, it should only take a couple of minutes to whizz through.

You will use this for the code only. Seeing as the script looks at the jpeg numbers you can switch the blank frames out for actual frames and the script wont know any difference.

2. Open your last save and then tweak the start/finish angles to only a portion of your turntable. For example, reduce the angle to 180 to render out just half of your turn table in one sitting (don't forget to adjust the frames as necessary, in this case by half). These jpegs can then be copied into the folder that's linked to your first RV render.

3. Do the same but for the other 180 degrees of the turntable and then add these to the same folder as above. Be careful to make sure that they are copied in the right order.

This way you can render out your turntable in however many portions you want (but only if your maths is up to scratch)

I did this sort of trickery for my 1st VR. I had to, because the VR wizard currently doesn't work together with KeyShot Animation. In fact, for that one I just edited an existing VR. All settings for the type of VR, smoothness control, amount of images in u- & v-direction... are kept within the html file. As long as you know the filename syntax for the individual images, you can basically create VRs from scratch. That is one of the nice things about KeyShot VRs, I think.

However, doing this -or using your approach- is quite tedious for (hemi)spherical VRs.

Dries

[guest84672]

It does work with animation, albeit limited:

- First of all, it will only work with Turntable VRs
- Second, put all animations into a folder and then reduce the length to 1sec in the time line.
- In the Render Dialog, under KeyShotVR, there is an advanced button with several settings. Uncheck "Hide Animations", and then let it rip.

Unfortunately, it will not let you preview it. I hope that we can improve this for KeyShot 4.

Thomas