From Bryce to Carrara, still images and animation replication challenge
Retro Lad
Posts: 471
Here is my very first completed animation made in Bryce, and my last animation using Bryce's torturous, and very limited, control options. My plan is to redo this idea in Carrara which is why I posted this in the Carrara Forum.
The animation has a music score so please turn up your speakers. The Classical Music is part of the opening music to Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle,
Ring/Torus Planet
https://vimeo.com/288923496
Post edited by Retro Lad on
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Comments
That looks cool FlashGarcia - thanks for sharing. Hope you enjoy exploring Carrara's awesome capabilities - they seems endless.
Very nice, the kind of thing Bryce is good at - it made me think of "Ring World" by Larry Niven, although I don't think his world was a torus. I recall being excited when Bryce added animation, Bryce 3 I think. Also, one of the best animation books I've ever read was "Real World Bryce" by Kitchens and Gavenda, based on Bryce 4 I think. Lots of clever Bryce animation tricks, like putting a camera on a hinged crane. But I think you'll find Carrara much more capable ... a learning curve, yes, but it seems like there is always something more to discover.
Really enjoyed your animation. Looks great and the music was a nice addition.
RE: Carrara remake - if you go to the following post, you will find links to WIP threads where I tried to model a torus shaped world using Carrara. Mine was only a large space-station with vegetation, but it might save you time creating your own torus-shaped world.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/763267/#Comment_763267
and
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/743906/#Comment_743906
and
.
and there had to be a space caretaker
.
Yes very Larry Nivinish :) thanks for sharing - good to welcome someone with talent like yours!
very cool animation...
Thanks everyone for your comments.
I should have made clear that my torus planet is about as big as the Earth, and not the super gigantic size of Larry Niven's Ringworld which completely circles the sun. I walked past Larry Niven on two occassions but was too nervous to introduce myself. Sad. That was four decades ago. Yeah, I am getting on as they say.
My big plan for the Torus Planet idea, starting way back in 1999, was to have the Bryce camera move in slowly towards the revolving Torus Planet and then enter the atmosphere moving through the cloud layers and then zooming over the landscape of the planet. All that in about four minutes with the same music cut which is about that length.
Bigger plans were to make animations of the Torus/Ring Planet from different angles and having it revolve and so forth, and then making a variety of Torus/Ring worlds with different landscape geologies, maybe a volcanic one, or ocean world, etc.
Finally, I have made many still renders of various Torus planet configurations, over the years, and I will post them here if you like. They were all made in Bryce, so that may be a problem for the moderators with Forum conflict. I want to try making those kind of images in Carrara though, so maybe that will make them acceptable here.
Diomede,
"Silent Running" starring Bruce Dern. I remember those funny squat robots. Neat imagery. I tried something like your imagery in Bryce ten years sgo, but not as detailed, and no animals and vegetation, just an asteroid collection. I've got a lot of Forum info to catch up on. Thanks
Steve K,
I had a copy of that fat book "Real World Bryce" by Kitchens and Gavenda, but lost it in the move to this new place. I had read, and browsed, through most of it except for the animation section. Great book.
Just an aside, the short story "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven is an alltime favorite for me and a lot of people. I recall reading that Mr. Niven was very proud of it because he managed to write a [hard scifi] love story [the title is from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"]:
"I was watching the news when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my
eye. I turned toward the balcony window. Whatever it was, I was too late to catch it.
The moon was very bright tonight."
Steve K,
A good story.
_and this reminds me of _Silent Running 1972 film_
Four stars (of four) from Roger Ebert, high praise. Reportedly the little bots influenced the design of Lucas' R2D2.
"Silent Running" was directed by the special effects master Douglas Trumbull if I remember right.
I removed these 5 extra videos, but here is the very first one I did. No longer private, but comments are closed.
Ring/Torus Planet
https://vimeo.com/288923496
I uploaded the remaining, and final, 5 animation tests of my Ring/Torus planet made in Bryce 7 to Vimeo. Here are the addresses for them. They are not long and they have various music scores. I am trying to find the best music for the animation scenes.
If I can't find a way to do this kind of imagery in Carrara, then maybe I will have to returneth to Bryce for a bit longer to finally finish this stuff once and for all. The texture map for the surface of the planet is supposed to look like continents and large islands and oceans. I tried many ways of making an alien planet surface and this was the best I could do with Bryce using a map of Europe and using the "random" option on it.
I tried to make my own star map, and studied various methods used in Photoshop but they all ended up looking stinko, and many digital star maps I have seen look phony with too many stars and clutter. So I searched for a Nasa star map that would not distract from the Ring Planet and found this one, and I modified it a bit.
The password for all the videos is Flash animation 1
Scene 2 http://vimeo.com/286292145
Scene 3 http://vimeo.com/286295925
Scene 4 http://vimeo.com/286296460
Scene 5 http://vimeo.com/286297087
Scene 6 http://vimeo.com/286297660
ahh the secret addresses :)
Looks great.
You should be able to do something similar in Carrara.
RE: star map. You can place a star map in the background or the backdrop channels of the scene tab. For a standard pic of a sky, place in th backdrop. for a 360 dgree image, place in the background.
RE: torus world cloud movements. You can animate textures in Carrara.
Here I've placed a stra map in the backdrop. Normally, I'd adjust the image dimensions to the map's dimensions to eliminate distrotion, but just illustrating. I've got a shadow catcher also.
RE: Background - if you put a map in the Scene tab Background (as opposed to backdrop) it will be used as a 360 degree image. Best if the map is twice as wide as height. If you also check the Skylight box in the render room then the background will also be used as lighting.
Looking good. To repeat a previous tip, there is a great source of maps and related materials here:
https://www.davidrumsey.com/
I think most of the maps are free for non-commercial use, something like a Creative Commons license, but check the site yourself for the terms.
Yo can have more options with a (now) free plugin by Eric W called StarBright. Check out the first page of the current challenge thread (42 frontier) if you need the link.
Not sure what's up with my computer/forums but I just lost all my clever typing...
Anyways, I just wanted to say this is a super old school option: render is a primitive sphere and plane inside a Vertex Sphere. Vertex Sphere is sized to 1kmx1kmx1km with a simple shader in the Glow Channel: Glow > Natural Functions > Spots
Dial in the shader options to your liking.
Render room options: AntiAliasing: Good Object Accuracy: 1pixel Shadow Accuracy: 1 pixel (although for the star sphere I guess you don't need shadow accuracy...)
Cheers
Is Dan's Starry Night available anywhere?
Thanks for the tips. It's been so humid here until now, that I could barely function for the last few days. Vegetable days for me.
In bryce I used a map of a part of Europe and placed it on one of the toruses using Bryce's random texture option. The random option randomizes the texture keeping the appearance of mapped area and places it on an object, in this case my torus, without distortions. I just can't find a way to do this with Carrara's texture options without stretched, blurred, and a sloppy map look.
I used three toruses in Bryce; the smallest torus being the surface, the second torus being the clouds, and the third torus for the atmosphere, and then grouped them together.
I haven't tried animating cloud types on a torus in Carrara yet.
I downloaded the Starbright plugin.
Couple of thoughts on a very cool idea!:
The toroidal (sp?) planet and cloud cover concept are very cool and believable, both in your presentation and the world of physics as I would imagine things could work (layman's eye). I really like the idea, and I 'buy' it!
Because any music sets the mood for a story, it's hard to prefer one over the other without knowing what mood you wish to create, and they all do create various moods - but I think I prefer the music (w choral 'ahhhs') in scene 6, although music from Scene 2 and 3 are fairly neutral/nice for such a scene.
If you wish to create the impression of the viewer/camera moving in on the world, scene 2 (blooper) is actually the best one. If the world is supposed to be moving through space toward the viewer at a good clip, then the others (static star-plane) work to create that feeling.
Lastly, in Bryce, when image maps are set in the global modes (i think) and you move the mapped object through the the scene space, the mapping is also directly affected by the motion, so when the planet is moving, the atmosphere turbulance looks 'wrong' or distracting/confusing to my eye, whereas when the planet stops moving through the space, the atmosphere swirl seems more correct. The mentioned effect is especially clear in scene 4, where it slows to a stop about half way, and the atmosphere 'mellows' in its motion/swirl. I like that one and think slowing the atmospheric activity a bit more might really be compelling. Also, I think it would be easy to get the exact *same* motion/framing effects you are already achieving by moving the camera (and maybe zooming some?) rather than moving the planet (other than the planet's own current 'on center' rotation, which looks good, but might stand some slowing as well - i think large things don't move fast, so it looses some potential massiveness when moving quickly - but that might only be me).
You've nailed the effect. Playing with things a bit might be worth a few more renders, just to see.
cheers,
--ms
Been working on a test using color gradients and fractal noise to generate a "continents" and oceans. Also an animated cloud layer. Results look promising.
This video is just a quick experiment. It is on dropbox. No membership needed to download.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/08rf4h0uzkuded2/torus-world.mov?dl=0
Here is the scene file. Pay attention to the shaders. If you need help or don't understand something, then ask away!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tsmy3ncfm3nub7j/torus-world.car?dl=0
evilproducer ,
I downloaded your files. Thanks!
This may become an ongoing experiment to replicate a Brycean Ring Planet in Carrara.
mindsong
Thanks for your compliments and suggestions. I find the Bryce animation controls annoying, but I will give it another whirl. I originally didn't intend the clouds to move so fast in some of the animations which is why I made the excuse that it's time lapse photography from an orbiting satellite. Lol
Moving the camera to avoid the "global" cloud whirlygig may help, and I probably didn't think of that because I was so frustrated with the Bryce animation controls and it's slow rendering. Bryce is still 32 bit, and it hasn't been seriously upgraded in ages. Each brief render scene took almost an hour.
In my mind's eye I can see my Ring Planet on a giant Cinerama theater screen, animated by Disney Studios, with the camera moving at a modest speed toward the planet, with the clouds barely moving, and the spinning of the planet barely noticable, and slowly descending through the clouds layers, and then flying over a landscape on the planet, all to the music of the first 4 or 5 minutes of Richard Wagner's haunting opening music for his Ring Cycle.
Sounds like you're seeing that 'grand' planetary scheme as well. I like and use Bryce, although I've also found my animation results to be kind of abrupt/mechanical, due to my inability to fine-tune the easing controls the way I'd like )more practice needed). That said, I've both done and seen some good stuff come out of it, so it may be worth pursuing. Your current stuff looks like it's 95% there!, so that fine-tuning may be worth the effort.
FWIW, when putzing with camera animation, I recommend using the 'dots' (upper left green mini-buttons) to save positions you like before moving the camera from good places/zooms to new positions, etc. It's nice to be able to get back to a know 'good' place when using the often-fiddly camera controls.
For speedier test-runs, you might consider reducing the quality, setting high priority, dropping anti-aliasing, and maybe even resolution (e.g. 360x640) for some continued test renders before going all-in on a final-quality render. The time savings to 'get the shot' first might get you converged to your mental image more quickly. I'd ask the crew over in the bryce-forums how they'd set the finals for the best quality/speed that the TA render can give when you settle on the final sequence. The settings I'm talking about are on the pop-up menus near the mid-left edge of the screen, just right of the navigation ball. Some handy camera controls there too.
cheers,
--ms
The thing to remember about cgi animations, the more bells and whistle you have, the longer it will take to render. The other factor is the resolution. The larger the resolution the longer it will take. Pro-level motion picture animation such as PIXAR or Disney takes can take hours to render a single frame with a render farm. So while an hour to render your scene seems like an interminable length of time, it isn't that bad. That being said, I have rendered animations in Bryce in the past. As well as Studio and many times in Carrara. I do find the time vs. quality best in Carrara by far. I can better renders faster with better resolution and AA in Carrara in a shorter amount of time than the other programs.
Render farms are such a terrific idea ":)
The "camera moving only" test just finished rendering and the results are good for a test. It looks kind of 3D. The clouds are not swirling like mad, and the planet is not rotating. It took about 50 minutes to render at 640x480 size. I render it large to get a feel for how good or stinko it is. Smaller images won't do in this case
I had a copy of Susan Kitchens Bryce Bible, or whatever it's called, but I lost it during a move. I read most of the book, but avoided the animation section.
Carrara is great for some types of CG work, but I find it has limits. One of them is this one, replicating a Ring Planet as good as Bryce is capable of doing.
I decided today, following a frustrating time trying to model and texture a Ring Planet in Carrara with no good results that I am wasting my time. I already have completed Ring Planets in Bryce and the only frustration in Bryce is working the animation controls. Why rebuild a house when I already have one, so to speak. If it works don't fix it, is another. In short, I will stick with just one frustration which is the Bryce animation controls.
There are things Bryce cannot do, that Carrara can do such as the fantastic Bullet Physics/Force stuff, and Carrara has a great rendering look that many people admire whereas Bryce still tends to have that Brycey look.
However, I can use Carrara for scenes of the construction of a Ring Planet. WHAT! Yes, the Ring Planets are artificially constructed planets, and they are scattered throughout our galaxy. Nasa is hiding the Hubble photos of them. Nah, just kidding, but if we do ever find a ring planet in space we will know it's artifically made.
I understand that you are frustrated, but I think that your statement is incorrect.
The people that you are interacting with in this thread each have decades of experience working with Carrara. They are really, really good. I have far less experience than any of them, but even I could construct a ringworld in Carrara which would rival yours.
Please don't sell Carrara short. It has a learning curve. It took me many months of dedicated Carrara work - every day - before I started to get comfortable.
Hope I didn't offend.
not a planet but a torus I animated in Carrara
I am sure I could do a tori planet too if it had occurred to me
done the familiar old orb a few times