supernovavfx

I've done a bunch of tests on my iMac and was happy... my question is this. Other than Tomas handwriting a list... how much of 64 bit EI is multithreaded. and what ISNT. Bullet simulations for example.. i believe benefit greatly with more cores. But online the discussions are about what PARTS of the app benefit from 6 - 8 - 12 cores and which parts or functions does the app see or use just ONE processor. Im trying to weigh the "value" equation. Im still not positive on which is best for camera... 8 32 bit cameras with 2 threads assigned to each... or just one 64 bit camera using 64 gigs of ram and all 8 cores and 16 threads. I get good results both ways but not sure when to go one way or the other. With EI there is not a lot of info out there thats up to date with the new Mac Pro. 8 core 3.3ghz mac pro for 5k or 4 core 3.5 ghz iMac for 2.5k? tough decision. Any insight would be great... we all know these times are costly and we want to buy the right product. I can't do windows now.... thanks

its comprised of about 50 animations... its entire programming look covering a huge variety of shows from comedy, to judge shows and others... I just found out 2 days ago... ill post a link to some work in a few days.... I'm swamped now... :)

very proud to announce my \ Supernova's, 7th Emmy Awards Nomination yesterday for the animation and design work I did for the TV Station WCIU Chicago. I have been out of the TV station 'game' for about 7 years but have been very fortunate to have had my animation entered 7 times and nominated 7 times in my TV career, with multiple victories. All the 3d animation was done with EI V9.1 • especially proud to blow away the work done by Cinema 4d and Maya animators.... • I've been using EI for close to 2 decades and continue to be amazed at how good the software makes ME look. Thank you Tomas... and all involved in keeping this amazing tool relevant and powerful! with appreciation, Scott Novasic

if I understand Tomas correctly... the number of strips does not matter... the total 'rays' or calculation for the entire scene needs to be done by each camera.... so 'rendering' is faster, but if the camera can not calculate the GI than its irrelevant. I said before... I'm learning a lot here... its all good.

I'm just going to "normal" non GI ray traced shadows... speed is not as important as simply not "bombing" now I've got to figure out how to tweak THESE settings... LOL learning on the fly after 20 yrs of 3d we never stop learning...

rendering in strips does NOT help. All it does is render the a few strips and error out on the complicated strips... memory error. I need advice on how to work with the GI settings to avoid the out of memory errors.

so to do this i need too set up renderama for my "test" renderings than? LOL its been so long since I've done a poster this large 6600 wide by around 9000 tall.... I'm literally figuring this out this minute and this hour so please share anything you all know, I'm reading on this right now.... I have 3 posters to do.

So far I was able to get it to render by lowering the raytrace recursion from 10 to 5. Im not sure I know what you mean or how to "tile" render this... but ill see if i can find it in the manual. getting it to work was most important. I have to be done with this poster today so that matters.... THANK YOU ALL

I'm ALMOST there.... thanks Michael... that was easy... I'm surprised I've never used or needed GI before... but like all great things there seems to be a catch!! your directions really helped me find a great 'look' pretty fast.... BUT :( when I go to render it at even 3.4ths resolution I get NOT ENOUGH MEMORY both with the 64 bit camera and the 32 bit one. I have 32 gigs of ram.... is there a way to get around that by sacrificing a setting i might not be aware of? this is a 27 by 40 inch poster for print... so its about 6000 x 9000 pixels ideally.... its run out of memory attempting just 3\4ths of that... i 'think' it rendered half resolution ok... so it DID work for me and look great... just maybe outside of EI's capabilities?

i was using a radial light... and your settings seem to be giving me more of what I'm looking for.... thank you...

that really helps me have an area i can start with mike... I can't seem to get the 'use GI sampling Engine' to be an active box i can check

If i can soften up the ray traced shadows just a 'bit' i think i may go with those... they seem really accurate... a "bit" harsh... but graphically accurate and not bad looking... just not soft. here is the buffer setting of just the ONE light the background is simply a photoshop illustration of grass and sand... on an uber shape I'm only allowed 13.4 k to upload imagery???? can someone loosen up my "restrictions"

here is ray traced but its super hard edged....

here is one palm tree

my newest contract client wants me to create a poster.... its all coming together nicely but when i add palm trees and more... the shadows appear SUPER BLOCKY and lacking any nuance or detail... I have read all about the different settings I can change and have tried a bunch but not gotten much closer. The poster is huge.... 27 inches by 40 'roughly 6000 x 9000 pixels... I've increased the buffer size but i have no frame of reference... I do 99% HD video and animation... something this high in resolution is new to me. Test renders take 10 to 20 to 30 minutes so I am hoping someones feedback can save me the hours and hours of tests I'm failing at so far :) ray traced shadows intrigue me but appear to require lots of trial and error i dont have time for on THIS project anyway... so many GREAT EI print artists out there... your input on high quality buffer shadow settings would be VERY APPRECIATED! Thanks... i am trying to attach an image

i want to bake the simulation... but i struggled selecting JUST the dynamic elements like you told me originally. There are so many of them. I thought it may be easier just to bake not only the simulation... but the whole EI file.... I'm happy with it as is. The ONLY thing I want to do after baking it.. is render various camera moves at various times along the simulation. I figured it might be easier, Tomas, for me to bake everything, simulated or not. Just because i was getting confused.

Tomas?

I asked Tomas a while back and I could not completely understand or implement what I was supposed to do regarding this so I'm asking the question again in a more straight forward way. In order to render just the last 5 seconds of a simulation... I need to "bake" the dynamic elements a certain way. Tomas told me what to do and I had close to a thousand elements and could not do it properly. here is my question. Since selecting the dynamic elements is so time consuming... can I simply bake the WHOLE EI FILE...?? I'm happy with it all.... Im hoping the steps involved in doing THAT are far easier for me to follow. How do I do that? At the quality level I need, I average almost 30-45 minutes PER FRAME... so baking the simulation would save me days and days of rendering as I'm doing multiple camera shots of the scene. Scott

one other thing id like to add to this conversation from people who do what I do for a living.... stylized graphics and visual effects etc... I'm interested in how these settings may allow me to achieve unusual, "cool" looking 'effects'. Sort of the opposite of reality... also... can an ibl be animated?

yeah... I'm needing to do 1080 p stuff and hundreds of frames... so I'm going to need some good quality speed trade offs..

Michael that is great! I am just starting an exciting new business arrangement with CBS and ABC television in Palm Springs California... this will DEMAND that I start to gather resources and elements related to palm trees, deserts, mountains and etc etc.... its also an oasis for the rich and famous to vacation... I just started a few days ago and will be creating a ton of animation for them using my favorite combination of Pro Animator for modeling and EI for rendering....

I have to agree. Tomas, is amazingly hands on and the customer service is the best its ever been with EI. Im excited to share some of my new animations that are pushing bullet and camera to the brink... :) I'm having as much fun as I've ever had with EI!

could you help Tomas, share how to make sand dunes in EI? Is it a photoshop file and exr? or is it just not easy to do with the tools we now have... in which case ill look into buying some terrains.... not every tool can do every thing.... so I'm not complaining.... just searching for some kind of work flow...

this is a bit generic... but my newest venture is in Palm Springs California... Ironically I've never really done sand dunes... hills, mountains and more and if anyone HAS done things like that, or knows of some good pre made model sets for EI.... or just as good... great shaders and best ways to make terrain that has desert like maps or shaders or both... Palm Trees as well as other Desert plant life, as fact files are also appreciated.... I think I know how id get those. Ever since losing image to mesh years back.... I'm not aware of how to easily displace a mesh into a mountain or dunes etc.... thanks, Scott

Personally, I have a pretty good workflow and set of tools to do what I want to do. I mention Fiber Forge ONLY because it used to "exist" and no extra work would be involved in "theory". Thank you for the answer.... I look forward to whatever is next on your list of updates to EI... whatever it is I'm sure it will be something ill find a way to use creatively!! I might have to look into what Placer Deposit can do... in sort of "weird" abstract "graphic design" ways.... I do love messing with various tools and creating imagery those tools were not naturally intended for in the first place... :)