Tango

Hi Tomas, Yes, changing the extension worked really well. All my renders from yesterday worked properly when re-imported into AE. We will change the extensions of all our renders for this "PAL" project. I imported with "All formats" turned on and everything was fine. Thanks a lot, I should be able to quickly fix the various renders without re-rendering. We have a lot of documentary animations to do. Thanks to EI, rendering speed is not an issue. Christian

Sorry, we are running CS5, my mistake. As for the import process, should I go to : file/import/file (as I always do) and "enable" the "ElectricImage IMAGE" format instead of keeping it on "All acceptable files"? When I do that the files are no longer selectable (meaning it doesn't recognize the format). I just want to make sure I understand the proposed way of importing these files. Christian

Hi Tomas, We are running CS5.5. I assume I have the proper quicktime component since it reads the files. What I have installed is "EIComponentUB.component", version 1.5b2. My macbook pro is the controller (intel). Is there a newer version I should use? Christian

Thanks for the suggestion. I was in the process of re-rendering a few layers, brought them in AE with the same 26.087 fps. It fixed the problem, actually, it moved it to a different frame number, just an offset. I tried importing with the "IMAGE ElectricImage" format selected. All files turned grey and were no longer selectable. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant, or it's a PC thing (we are on Mac). I wish we could render numbered frames with Renderama, but I have to use the renderfarm. I'll let you know how I solve this one, because I have to fix it for sure. Renderama is great, but it is sometimes a bit of a pain to use. Lately, it renders a batch of renders (most to 99.6 or 98.8%) and crashes at the end of the list. Before even starting to stitch any of them. It picks up the last frames and starts stitching on restart. Strange, it used to start stitching while rendering other files in the batch, no longer. Christian

We have an unusual problem. We normally work at 30 or 29.97 fps, but we have to master a large project for PAL distribution. We are getting duplicate frames every 24 frames. We are comping everything in After Effect, obviously set-up for 25 fps, in HDV 1920 x 1080. Some layers rendered at 26.087 fps, which is odd. The only set-up I know in EI is PAL:25. I don't know what would have caused such an odd frame rate. Asking AE to use 25 fps instead of the file native fps does't help. We will see if we can find all culprits and try to re-render them. Any suggestion on what may cause this to happen will help avoiding the problem in the future. This is, of course, assuming we will get it fixed. Thanks, Christian

You can do 3D text directly into EI, although, since we do most of our compositing in After Effects, I use "3D Invigorator". It's an After Effect plug-in by Zakwerks, simple, it works well and exports to "Image" format. http://zaxwerks.com/invigorator_pro/index.shtml Have a look at it and "3D text" in EI, and decide which one is best suited for your specific needs.. Christian

This may be a bit late... I was watching a tutorial on Sub Surface Scattering by Ian and towards the end he uses a gradient shader to add a rim sort of light. I played with the shader in my project files I just completed and could achieve a look similar to what I could get with aRIM. The only difference is that the effect is applied equally around the object. I used it in the luminance channel and it worked well. I am sure it could help creating an X-ray look. Christian

I am in the middle of production for a science based doc., minutes of animation. This is why it had to be an EI project, mainly because of Camera and Renderama. I am getting a lot of Renderama errors, specially while stitching the files. It almost happens every time it gets to the bottom of a list of renders. It crashes at 96 - 98% completion. I don't have time to trouble shoot, I just have to babysit the renders. I just ran into an old issue, the dreaded 2GB file size limit.... forgot about that one. Got it stitched by splitting the frames into 2 folders but this could be avoided if there was a way to render sequential frames with Renderama. I know it can be done by rendering locally but that defeats the purpose. Are these issues on the radar while preparing v9? I know there are many issues and requests, but that would make life easier for most of us. I also understand Macs have their own challenges when it comes to file management.... Thanks, Christian

Hi, I have used plug-ins to do that, it's been quick and easy. "aRIM", "aSem" by now defunct TripleDot were great. They don't work for me anymore, they render single frames but crash on rendering sequences. And there is nobody to turn to for answers. The old issue of EI plug-ins vanishing (usually just after you bought them). Konkeptoine sells "Microscope", but I can't remember if it can get you the same look or if it crashes on sequence render (on a mac). I am currently doing a medical project and was planning on using "aRIM". I am using rim lights instead and doing some colour adjustments. I remember a post by Richard Joly, he said he got that look by using ramps. Not sure exactly how he did it but you may want to do a small search for it. Christian

Photons have been on my "to learn" list for a while. You are providing the best road map for taking a stab at it. I will go through it as soon as I can get my head above water. Thanks Tomas, you're the man! (not to forget Ian or anyone else working in the back...)

Hi, I don't know if the shaders use temp files, it's a potential answer. The production deadline forced me to move to plan B ( or was it C or D?). I converted the geometry we originally built in Maya and re-imported the models as 3ds, straight into EI. It had an impact on the topology and how various shaders react. I was able to use the basic fractal shader to mimic the look I was getting from "aFraktal", and changed my lighting to approximate a rim light. I know I can do a pass with a ramp shader if needed. Worked all night and got the scenes I was working on to render (and quickly on my MacBook Pro at home). I will dig deeper into this problem once I have finished this project. Thanks for your help. Christian.

That's too bad, I was just about to give "flock this" a go. It takes a while to set-up and may not be the answer. I am rendering animations in HD resolution. A single frame is O.K., but as soon as I fire it on Renderama I get trouble. Yes, turning off the "A-fraktal" and "A-rim" allows the renders to complete. I can render the 10 sec. seq. with three objects, if do 6 objects it crashes at frame 5, if I have all 24 objects, it does only one frame. Camera memory allocation is 1024, I doubled it with the same results. It really feels like there is data piling-up somewhere. Although, the MCIO is a Mackintosh File I/O error (I am working on Macs). I get the same problem wether I render on a single machine or an 8 core mac with 8 render engines. I have yet to try rendering without Renderama. That would be a pain but might get me out of this jam. Christian

Hi Steven, Proxies won't help, I can have as many objects as I want and render them, it's when I start rendering an animation that the problem occurs. I am considering buying "placer deposit" and "Flock this" from Northern Lights. They are instancing plug-ins, and should help. I bought from them before but am not sure if they are all up to date. Not a very active site... Either that or I keep creating the same look with other shaders. Thanks, Christian

I am working on a medical documentary, lots of bacteria animations to do. I have my look set-up and tested.The base shading uses "A-fractal" and "A-rim" great products no longer supported. I did render tests with 3 objects using the same material and everything went well. Now that I am in production and have to populate the scenes with around 20 to 30 bacterias (simple models, same material), I can get only one frame rendered before camera crashes. It looks like a memory allocation issue since lowering the number of objects allows me to render up to 5 frames before crash. I increased the camera memory allocation, tried on EI7, same results... I tried to replicate the same look with other shaders but it is hard. I have over 2 minutes to animate and I can't afford to deal with such a technical problem. Has anyone run into a similar problem? Any idea what I should try? Thanks, Christian

Hi Scott, I know how you feel, it's the kind of story we don't like getting involved into. A set-design company we worked with in the past contacted us last April for a big pitch. It was a chinese broadcaster re-branding one of it's many stations. According to our contact, they had worked together before. That sounded safe. We met with them and their asian agent. They told us that the project was to be completed in about 5 weeks, including the pitch. They explained that for their client, anything is possible, it's a culture thing. We definitely could not do it within the "crazy" time frame considering our on-going projects. Wet suggested a good studio, bigger with more resources who may be interested. They put together several boards over the weekend (lots of work and money). The work was sent and.... nothing. No feed-back whatsoever. They asked us several time if we had feedback, it took me a while to finally hear back from our initial contact who claimed he had nothing to report. This puts me in an awkward position, the studio pitching are good friends, they got involved because of us and I feel responsible for getting them involved. They worry about the creative being used without consent. We all look for business opportunities, unfortunately, in this case I am afraid it will impact on our relationships. Now, I have some damage control to do. At least, it sounds like you stopped before getting too deep into it. Thanks, Christian

I know this thread is aging but I am dealing with the same great shader set without support available anymore. I have used the shaders without problems with v8 on Macs for still frames. I am about to do a big project that would be perfect for the shaders but my rendering tests briught-up a problem. HD renders, I get rendering errors after a few frames, it goes as follow: "Asem" 20 f, "bFractal" 20f, "aRim" 40f. It reports "SCAL Error ID ; 2 Error number : -1. According to my documentation, it is a "Shader Callbacks" error. It is either #1- Camera ran out of memory, or #2- Could not open shader. Anyone has a pointer? not sure if I can do much with this info without support from TrippleDTools. I may have to replicate the same look with a combination of other shaders. Unfortunately I already have the look down and would like to avoid the other option which is to render in small sections or babysit the renders. Thanks to anyone wanting to shed some light on this brilliant set of "old" shaders. Christian

Hi Don, We create a lot of logos and signatures for television shows and network brands, most animated in EI. All design is done with illustrator and extruded with "3D Invigorator", an After Effect plug-in. It does a great job, maintains the grouping based on the layers in the illustrator artwork and exports to many different formats, including .fact. Zakwerks sells the same plug-in as a stand alone application "Pro Modeler". http://zaxwerks.com/promodeler/index.shtml Have a look at it, it's a great tool. Christian

Félicitations Richard! he looks so real, great texture map too. It's a good way to bring you back from virtual to the real world. Christian

We are doing a project on Nano particles and technology. I started to play with the Parametric Surface plug-in and can see a real potential for creating interesting shapes. I am unable to render the shapes it generates. I tried inverting normals, nothing. Expressionist is in the project as required but no render. The only way I can render the geometry is to export it and bring it back. Am I missing something? Christian

Hi Derryl, I worked with PixelGrains last month for a broadcast project. I was using a quicktime movie as a source since I wanted to animate the extrusions. It worked very well. Although the visuals were created as grey scale clips, they were saved as RGB quicktimes. I don't know if the colour space is an issue. If you are using still images as a source, you may want to try JPEG instead of IMG (in RGB colour space). I hope this helps. Christian

Hi Dave, Thanks for the reply. I was hoping that Silo would somehow connect with Camera, specially that it exports .FAC format. I should look for an alternate rendering engine to complement Silo. It is rather strange that they don't provide some sort of rendering engine. Thanks, Christian

Hi, I often use Silo for modeling and would love to be able to render with Camera directly from Silo while building the models. I understand it should be possible but I can't get it to work. I assign "FAC" as the file format to use and put the full path to "Camera" in the "Render Command", hit "RENDER" and... nothing. Has anyone managed to get it to work? (I'm on Mac). Thanks, Christian

I needed to start full screen on the flag, I did get the triangulation and could not get rid of it in rendering. My work around was to render a larger white flag that I would blur and cut with the alpha channel of the right size render. Comp on top of it a render of the design printed on it and added a shadow pass. I think I allowed about 30 sec. of pre-roll. It worked out fine. I will have to keep in mind the Dicer option. When you are under the gun, you make it work somehow. I have attached a sample of the section of the animation with the flag. Thanks again Richard. Video_loRez_h264.mov

Google him. I found him during the weekend, he has a web site. Here is the link to his page, you will find the email in there. I didn't try to connect with him yet, so , I can say if it's all active. http://parroquianos.com/davidargemi Christian

I can definitely add to this argument from the consumer point of view. Like I wrote earlier, I had to use the non UB version when I purchased the plug-in, but it's status was "Being ported to UB". I bought it, believing that I would eventually get the UB version. It's been a long wait. Only once in a blue moon do I need Fiber Forge. But it's a pain to have to go to 5.5 in order to use it, it kills the workflow. In the end, was Konkeptoine just an umbrella under which individual programmers would sell their creations? It's a model that works as long as the users or potential customers are informed of the content status. I understand EI is a niche tool, I may be the sole EI animator in town, Toronto (Canada). I don't expect the EI plug-in creators to make a living of it. So, we have to be patient, but we also need to be informed. Thanks, Christian