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MMC- Strange Discovery (weird mind)
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
MMC- Strange Discovery (weird mind) // Work in Progress
Post by nigec // Nov 11, 2008, 2:13am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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My entry with have a bit of Flash trickery,.. i couldn't think of a way to do what i wanted as a single image
Theres no advanced stuff, just simple buttons anyone could do, i'll even share the FLA file to show how it was done (assuming i finish in time!)
this is the first part, i need to sort lights and add some more bits and pieces
the Flash version:
http://www.nigecstudios.co.uk/games/TS.html
it has rain and ripples done with a free program called Sqirlz Water Reflections,
at the moment the water looks more like a river and the splashes are a bit big lol |
Post by Steinie // Nov 11, 2008, 2:16am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Nice start nigec. Your work already has a creepy feel to it.
It's great to have you in the Challenge. |
Post by Nez // Nov 11, 2008, 2:21am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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That's quite cool, I like the effect, but it reminds me too much of yesterday's weather!
Certainly, there seems to be rather a lot of standing water, more like a shallow pond than a river, but the riples could definetly do with being smaller.
If the water isn't supposed to be several inches deep, then you've got a problem with your door threshold - the water is going to start running under it and int oyour building (like it does under my garage door occasionally!). External doors are usually at least a couple of inches above ground level, partly to stop this kind of thing....
Look forward to seeeing this develop - think you could have a bit more fun with the lighting... |
Post by Weevil // Nov 11, 2008, 3:15am
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Weevil
Total Posts: 534
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That's pretty nifty, maybe what Nez said, if you can make the ripple on the water smaller, quite a bit smaller, but have a lot more of them so it actually looks like the rain's inside the scene, it sort of seems that it's not as heavy as it looks, maybe if you make the environment slightly yellow to simulate an off stage street lamp, and maybe make the puddles slightly less like a river
Either way that's a clever idea |
Post by nigec // Nov 11, 2008, 3:24am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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Thanks :)
The ground is a terrain so in theory i can isolate where the puddle is, the way the light is at the mo, its giving the impression the ground is fairly flat, so when i tried just doing a puddle its edge was very defined and looked out of place
We remodeled our garden last year to find we'd messed up the drainage :rolleyes: it got really scary when the water got level with our backdoor step lol |
Post by Nez // Nov 11, 2008, 4:36am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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I know what you mean - there's a strip drain in front of our garage doors connecting to a soakaway, but when we've days of persistent rain it sometimes just stops working (the soakaway gets too saturated to work) and the water starts to build up... nearly breached our damp-proof course and front step for the main door into the house last year, we were out bailing the water away with buckets etc onto the lawn, into the street etc to stop it getting any higher! Was quite scary....
I'd assumed the effect was totally post-produced, but sounds interesting if you can get it to interact with a terrain - pot-hole style puddles (or rock-pools!) ought to be possible.... are you going to tell us how you did it at some point or leave us all in the dark?!;) |
Post by nigec // Nov 12, 2008, 4:51am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I might have to leave the rain and water out. I thought the animation for the rain and puddles where layed, so i could put other animated stuff on another layer, behind the rain, but it doesn't work that way, i'll look kind odd if animated objects appear in front of the rain.. I'll just worry about making the scenes for now :)
I re did the lights and added some more items
the other image is the mysterious box of discovery.... well tin, i'm very cheap lol |
Post by Nez // Nov 12, 2008, 4:58am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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What's the big dark thing hanging above the tin? Is it some kind of chute, with what look slike an old-style toilet flush on the side? :o
I don't know where you're going with this, but it's interesting! |
Post by nigec // Nov 12, 2008, 5:21am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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The idea is, you pull the chain and the box falls out, click the box and you get a close up of the closed tin.. then when you open the tin... :D
but yes the chute is way to dark, i need to rethink the textures on that one |
Post by nigec // Nov 13, 2008, 2:35am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I've changed a few things, ie a tea chest, wall texture, chute texture, modified the tin box
there's only adaptive AA so the lines of the box look a bit screwy :( |
Post by Weevil // Nov 13, 2008, 3:57am
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Weevil
Total Posts: 534
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stupid as it sounds...you may have gone completely the other way with the chute...maybe it stands out a little too much...otherwise though it looks like a nice scene, i like the milk bottles by the way |
Post by nigec // Nov 13, 2008, 6:32am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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stupid as it sounds...you may have gone completely the other way with the chute...maybe it stands out a little too much
I think i'm going to have to ask for help with lighting, my big issue is i can only render scanline, because of the video card, at the moment i can't stretch to Vray etc, plus there is also the risk i may have the same card issues
Its really annoying when a cr*ppy old PC with a 64 meg Intel onboard chip did better than the one fitted to the new PC :(
funny enough i got a low memory warning and crashing doing the tin box :rolleyes: so your not alone Weevil :rolleyes: |
Post by Nez // Nov 13, 2008, 6:44am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Which render engine are you using - I assumed you were using Lightworks from the model side? I thought this didn't rely on the teh graphics card as it's 'offline' rendering, so is dependant on your CPU instead....
Of course, I may be wrong in one or more of these assumptions... |
Post by TomG // Nov 13, 2008, 6:45am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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When rendering offline, your video card is not used and has no effect. So this is not preventing you using anything other than scanline, since it doesn't come into play. The video card only affects the real-time renders (ie what you see when you are working with tS). Scanline versus Raycast is a setting that is only related to offline rendering, so I'd say it's definitely not the graphics card.
So if you are having problems with rendering, then it won't be related to your card. More likely culprits would be overall system RAM, for instace, or some installation error perhaps. Could you give more details?
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by nigec // Nov 13, 2008, 7:41am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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Here you go Tom:
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ (2313 MHz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
DirectX version: 10.0
GPU processor: GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
ForceWare version: 175.21
Total available graphics memory: 575 MB
Dedicated video memory: 128 MB
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 447 MB
Video BIOS version: 5.61.32.20.01
1.5gb Ram
I installed XP on another drive and its doing the exact same thing, hence why i assumed it was the card, i can't use DirectX tools for scaling or texted wire frame
All the Vista BS is turned off, as is UAC, TS is running as an XP app |
Post by nigec // Nov 14, 2008, 3:22am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I took Nez's earlier advice and put a step for the door, added a handle, changed the fire escape, and i think i have the lights better
As for the above issues.. I tried Raycast in 6.6 and all i get is the busy cursor and nothing will happen, even appling colour on a single object |
Post by TomG // Nov 18, 2008, 3:11am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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System memory may be a problem - with 1.5Gb, but 0.5 Gb being stolen for graphics, that leaves you with 1Gb. Vista will tend to take 0.5 to 0.7Gb just to sit idle, leaving you only 300Mb free for tS. tS itself will take some of that, then you need to load your scene, which when uncompressed into the full thing from the saved file on disk will take up more than the file size you see on viewing the file, so tS with the file loaded might take up 200Mb say. When you start rendering, the render engine will need some memory on top of what tS already had, to start doing its calculations, but you are already down to 100Mb, perhaps less.
So it might be a genuine out of memory there - with Vista, I recommend at least 2Gb (but more is better) and a video card that doesn't siphon off from the system memory. In combination, those things could create a whole extra 1Gb for the system (though if it's a laptop, then changing the graphics card or expanding memory may not be possible of course).
HTH!
Tom |
Post by nigec // Nov 18, 2008, 3:29am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I've sorted it by turning off "multi thread rendering", it hasn't crashed or froze since, on installing on Vista and XP it was selected by default, I've never used that drop down menu so i can't really of selected it by mistake on two OS's, i was getting the same issues on a XP partition, hence why i assumed it was the video card
But I'm a happy bunny and now i can go back to my toon rendered backgrounds that i haven't been able to do for 11 months!
thanks Tom |
Post by nigec // Nov 21, 2008, 12:28am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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If anyone is interested, I've posted the FLA file for my entry, I used Flash 8.
To keep file sizes down, the box, chain, lid are animated on their own, with the rest of the scene hidden, exported images are png's, and cropped in Animation shop 3
The chain animation is a button, in hindsight it would of been better just animation and a invisible button which every other item uses, the MMC cut off time is extended so i might change that :) |
Post by tahnoak // Nov 21, 2008, 4:34am
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tahnoak
Total Posts: 487
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Great scene nigec. It seems as if the light is purposely bright enough to show the words on the door. Maybe if you lightened the texture on the door you could darken the light a little bit and it would not be so harsh and it would add to the ambience. |
Post by TomG // Nov 21, 2008, 5:21am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Multi threading is enabled by default, so I would hazard that everyone here is rendering with multi threading and no crashes, so it remains odd. I've yet to check into the question as to whether there was some AMD item relating to multi threading - anyone here remember that, some issues with AMD and either multi threading or multi core or some such?
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Finis // Nov 21, 2008, 6:21am
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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Deadline date extended to 11/23/08 and poll date to 11/29/08.
Cool! Is yours the first interactive MMC entry? |
Post by nigec // Nov 21, 2008, 7:08am
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nigec
Total Posts: 314
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I think so Finis
@tahnoak, i was going to lose the name on the door.. I was really struggling with lights the big issue was the chain and box couldn't cast obvious shadows, but look part of the scene as they are rendered as seperate items
plus i made a huge goof with the trash cans, they have holes at the top of the recesses, so i had the lights set to try and hide that :o
I wish i had decided to give this challenge a go earlier |
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