interstellar

Hi James - Thanks for responding; I got an iMac from my local Mac dealer last night. I networked it but with only two cores, it's not helping much!

I need to render a simple EIAS 9.1 project at 4k, 29.97 fps. The only plugin it uses is KMyst v1.0.1 which is applied to about 100 uberspheres. My Mac will take a week to render 750 frames, and it needs to be done much sooner. My Mac can't communicate with the internet because its OS 10.6.8, is incompatible with our internet gateway device. Does anyone know how I could get my file to a renderfarm? Thanks, Joe Tucciarone

Thank you very much, Tomas. I'll try that. CIao, Joe

I'm using a displacement map to make a moon. The resolution for the scene is 3840 x 2160. The map is a digital elevation image from NASA, measuring 11,520 x 5760 pixels. The moon is an uber-shape sphere; in the plugin, the latitude and longitude are both set to 3,600 (Camera). The Camera is set to 64 bit Architecture and Memory is set at 8,000 Mb. The attached picture is a closeup of the nearest part of the moon to the Camera. It's a composite; in the top, the NASA map is used as a bump map rendered with Phong. In the bottom image, the NASA map is used as a displacement map and is rendered in Raytrace. Using the map as a bump gives a nice image and doesn't require a sphere with so many polygons but raytrace rendering gives me nice shadows. The raytrace rendering must be done with "smooth" disabled on the sphere's uber-shape; unfortunately, the polygons are visible in the picture. The Camera crashes if I divide the sphere any more than 3,600 x 3,600. Is there a way to set this up so the polygons aren't visible in a raytrace render? Thanks for your help! Joe

The UHD Alliance has announced its standards for hardware & content at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here's one of many articles regarding their announcement: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarcher/2016/01/05/ces-2016-high-dynamic-range-tv-finally-gets-a-standard-you-can-just-about-understand

Hi Alex, My favorites are the first and the last images. Joe

Hi Derryl, You definitely create an impact with this - nicely done! Joe

Hi Steven, That's a very nice reel. I like the different rendering styles; they add to the visual interest of your scenes. Best Wishes, Joe

Hi, KMyst worked for me using EI 9.1 in a 3840x2160 (60fps) project on a 2008 Mac with OS 10.6.8. I had about 30 individual cloud objects; KMyst was on every cloud object, each with unique KMyst settings. However, I didn't fly through any of the cloud objects; I've never been able to figure out how to do that. Joe

Very nice, Steven!

Thanks Tomas . . . it looks like those improvements worked!

I rendered my asteroid in Ray Trace mode with shadows enabled on the light source, cast & receive shadows both enabled on the asteroid and with Motion Vector blur enabled. At one point, the asteroid came very close to the camera. All shadows and blurs look great.

Years ago I read that you should never use Motion Vector blur when rendering ray-traced shadows. Is that still true? I'm rendering a project in passes; in one pass a single asteroid flies past the camera. There is nothing else in this pass except for the asteroid. There are two Shaders on the asteroid: Fractal Noise and Rust. When I render it in Ray Trace mode with Motion Vector enabled, the blur looks fine. This will be a long render-pass so I want to make sure it is set up correctly. Is combination of Motion Vector and Ray Traced shadows okay in my case?

Here's a brief update on the state of UHD television. SMPTE is expected to set standards for UHD broadcasts sometime next year (2015). A few, limited broadcasts have already begun by companies like the BBC. The Production Hub now features a news digest called "4kHUB-NEW!". And, a 60-inch UHD television set has just appeared at the local Sam's Club discount store; that more than anything else shows that UHD TV is on the way! Joe

Ola Tomas, Thanks - I found it. I didn't realize you had put it on the Special Tab of the Fractal Noise shader. Joe

Hi, The Reactive Fractal Shader is in my EIAS v8 Shaders folder but it isn't in the shader folders for versions 9.0 or 9.1. Can I simply copy the one from my v8 shader folder, and copy its ".rsc" file, and put them both into my v9.1 shader folder? They were written in 2007. Thanks, Joe

Ola Tomas, It looks like the World Cup 2014 will be broadcast in "4k/60p" according to this story: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2014/m=4/news=sony-and-fifa-announce-further-coverage-the-2014-fifa-world-cuptm-2313778.html I'm sure you know that the World Cup will take place in Brazil! Joe

Over the last few months, I've been keeping up on 4k news. It looks likes the format for 4k television broadcasts will be 3840 x 2160 pixels. However, the frame rate is still up-in-the-air; I've seen articles in which frame rates of 59.94 fps and 120 fps are being discussed. Does anyone know anything more about the future of frame rates for 4k broadcast televison? Thanks, Joe

Ola Tomas, Thank you very much for the information! Joe

I have a question about using Renderama and the Local Camera simultaneously. I have an eight-core Mac Pro with 18 Gigabytes of RAM. If I assign six Slave Cameras to Renderama to render a scene, leaving the "local camera" idle in the slave column, is it possible or advisable to simultaneously render stuff with the Local Camera? Could I start and finish several renders on the Local Camera while the six slaves are rendering in the background? This would leave one core idle for "housekeeping". I don't want to try this if it will crash any of my slave cameras or if it will corrupt their renders. The manual seems to indicate that this procedure is possible but I thought I'd ask the best minds in the business! Thanks in advance, Joe

If 4k comes to pass, I'm going to need another rendering machine. My local Mac store suggested either the iMac 27" or the 12-core Mac Pro. Does anyone have a suggestion as to which Mac would be best for a renderfarm? Joe

Hi Guys, Thanks for your thoughts on this. Tomas, I believe the 4k format has a pixel aspect ratio of 1; that is, square pixels. Alex, I feel the same as you - it seems I just got good at standard HD and now they want us to go past that. Maher, all the articles I've read agree with you that 4k is coming fast. One source said only 60,000 4k TV's were sold in 2013 but they expect almost 3 million will be sold this year. Netflix will be setting up 4k streaming of movies soon, etc. Richard, I haven't seen a 4k TV yet but one source says you will need at least a 55-60 inch screen to see the difference between standard HD and 4k. Still, a lot of sports nuts want an acre of TV on which to see the Super Bowl, so maybe 4k TV's will be hot this week! Joe

Hi Everyone, I have been asked to consider rendering some projects in the ultra-high-definition format, 3,840 x 2,160 pixels, for TV. The guy who asked me has a track record with several networks, one of which must have asked that his next production be in 4k. Has anyone rendered to that format in EIAS? Do you have any opinions on the future of this format? I'm leery of working in a format that isn't commercially established yet. The reviews I have read are mixed, but a Wikipedia article indicates that media producers, broadcasters and manufacturers are heading in that direction. I'd appreciate your thoughts and/or experiences on 4k. Joe

I'm having an rendering problem; I'm seeing artifacts in EIAS v9 that don't appear when I render the same object in EIAS v8. I created an asteroid in ZBrush which was saved as a ".OBJ" file. I imported this asteroid into an EIAS v9 project and the ".OBJ" asteroid was converted to a ".fac" file. I applied a small photo of some dirt as a bump map; the photo was saved an an ".img" texture map. Some artifacts appeared in the small crater that is arrowed in the right hand side of the following picture: http://www.joetucciarone.com/aaa_asteroid_issue.jpg When I created the same scene from scratch in EAIS v8, imported the ".fac" asteroid and applied the same "dirt" texture map, I get the render that you see on the left side of the picture which has no artifacts. I could render my asteroid in EIAS v8 but I was wondering what's causing the artifacts in v9? Thanks, Joe

Hi Christian, If your project renders quickly, you could try this brute-force method. Render the project twice: once with all the elements present and another with all the elements present except the stadium. Then, in After Effects, you could composite the two layers, put the first render on top and apply feathered mask to this top layer to clear away part of the stadium. Joe