Outstanding news about the RAM. Here’s hoping it makes life easier. Oh by the way DDR4 is on the way in September at a hefty price. However, who knows when the price jump in DDR3 will come.
I’m going to post a interesting link here because your work lives in the ‘Get Their Attention World’ I believe, James. And, you no doubt realized years ago getting their attention becomes harder it seems with each passing year. And, so it seems the Irish makers of this public service ad said; ‘We have to have a Stopper’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD8BkIgp9Fo WARNING: Involves children and a car wreck in graphic detail.
Also your idea for a car ad reminded me of a short clip on TV years ago probably in a comedy show of sorts. This guys hitchhiking on a mountain road at night and this ‘Caddy’ screeches to a halt. He climbs in to discover a swimsuit model type in nothing but bra, panties, garter belt and black hose with heels. James I can’t remember the shots but less say her, his face, the speedometer and his face again before she runs straight off the road at 110 screaming miles per hour and you see the Cadillac catapulting off this cliff. She’s on the way to commit suicide and picks him up. I did not see that coming.
Once again I hope the RAM makes the work more enjoyable. You have me wondering what the next faster AMD CPU is in cost.
I’m glad to hear you had an upgrade in RAM. It makes a difference. I just doubled my usual ram with the computer I just got, and I can tell a heck of a difference, between that and the CPU. And regarding your idea for a car commercial. That would go so viral so fast, like that video of the semi truck with those crazy awesome brakes. I think it was Volvo.
ghost - Thanks for the heads up about DDR4, I will keep that in mind as I’m deciding what components to use in our next computer.
I had not seen that PSA video before, surprisingly enough! At the risk of sounding heartless, I found it rather funny- it’s so extreme (and fairly professional looking, I must add) for a video about traffic safety. Most of the PSA I see around here are rubbish. It must have been an interesting shoot for the video crew.
I also hadn’t heard of the hitchhiker skit- that’s very funny. I would love to try something short and simple like that for a future video. A good excuse to dress Mary in a skimpy outfit!
Frobenius - That’s great, I’m glad you’ve also experienced increased performance. I had to look up the video you mentioned (I’d only seen the Jean-Claude Van Damme one). That is really impressive braking. That reminds me of an “Fail Army” video I saw a while ago, showing a car pulling out in front of a semi going full speed. The semi stopped in an unbelievably short distance, with fully controlled braking, and avoided hitting the car. Sure enough, I went back to the video, and it was a new Volvo lorry.
A quick update before I have to leave the house- I’ve got the first shot completely rendered. It took about 12 hours for the raw frames, then a quick clean up in Photoshop to remove the major fireflies, and compositing in Blender again to add in the motion blur. It looks a lot better with the motion blur, not perfect but much more realistic. Just a handful of shots left now!
I can picture a whole new series of videos for Classy Dog- Mary tied to railroad tracks in lingerie, Mary on a balcony escaping a fire in lingerie, and Mary eating messy spaghetti at a restaurant in lingerie (they don’t have to make a lot of sense).
I’d love to share some of the new car renders with everyone, but since I’m saving it until the video is completed and uploaded, I’ll share something else. Here are test renders for an upcoming Thor Vs Hulk parody:
I’m still working on the shaders, but I’m pretty happy with the results already. This was only about an hour of tweaking after I imported the model from Daz into Blender. It renders really fast, too!
I’m with Harley! But, have you mentioned these mini shorts to Mary by any chance. After reading Harley’s post and yours I was just sitting here struggling to remember that clip. Honestly it seems like it was a rainy night and with extreme lighting done in B/W as in a Film Noir style. Only several things were in color including the women’s lips. And, of course being Film Noir she was sucking on a unfiltered Pall Mall. Our male lead had on a old broke down Fedora hat. Obviously a character down on his luck until the caddy pulled up.
James it was a mountain road mostly because on her side everything was in the distance. (Mats) Also, the establishing shot had a high fall off on his side. And, the critical shot was his face after she had done the rubbing her leg thing, etc. The guys face said it all. ‘Jackpot, Bound for Glory, My ship has docked’ Immediately followed by a close-up of the speedometer creeping past ninety five and headed to the promise land.
Amazing thread here once again. I enjoy straight animation but also the VFX treatment of subjects where the two are mixed. And, you guys have that going on down there.
You do a good job remembering the key parts of the video, ghost- I can picture it perfectly in my head. Maybe one day I’ll come across it and recognize it from your description!
I try to improve as a filmmaker as a whole- making better movies, not just better looking ones. I find it’s really hard to keep an objective view on what you need to work on when you are responsible for everything. Because I decided that Classy Dog Films is primarily a VFX/comedy channel, that means most of our content has to conform to that category, because that’s what our subscribers are interested in. And don’t get me wrong, I love working on the VFX videos and figuring out how to make them; but the biggest challenge is learning how to make better films, not just better effects. The effects work demands a lot of time, and if you’re like me, it becomes the focus of your work because it’s the most challenging factor. If you’re the director and you have other people doing the VFX, you don’t have to worry about it and you’re free to focus on the core of the film itself, but I don’t expect to have that luxury anytime in the near future. It’s important to not put too much time and effort into one area, or your work as a whole suffers, even if one area is great. It’s like working out just your upper body, and forgetting about your legs.
A bit of a rant, just my thought of the night! Anyway, here’s a frame grab from a recent shot- I know I said no more previews, but what the hell:
Thanks, minoribus! That shot also has camera blur, so it’s a little blurrier for that reason. When I watch the playback of the rendered sequence, though, it looks very natural- not too much or too little blur. Without the blur, the falling cars look much, much too choppy.
I’m finishing up the last remaining shots this weekend. The big ending shot with ~1,000 cars will be last. I’m still thinking how I should approach it to get the camera movement I want.
Here’s a quick little update- the finished animation should be completed sometime tomorrow, hopefully by late morning/early afternoon. The final shot is still rendering. I divided it up into 19 separate passes (9 for the cars, 9 for the shadows, and 1 for the background). That was the only way I could render 1,000 cars in one shot. Altogether, it takes an average of 18 minutes to render each frame, and the shot is 9 seconds long. Computationally, it’s definitely the worst shot in the whole film, but hopefully it will be a satisfactory ending. I’ll include a link to the video in this thread, as well as a post showing some individual frames in the finished projects thread tomorrow.
That’s correct, this video is 720. I experimented with 1080, but the render times were just too long. Total render time here will be between 250-300 hours. When I can invest in more powerful GPU’s, I’ll be able to put out full HD resolution.
I’m still rendering frames from Blender for the final shot- one of the passes took 14 hours to render (a lot longer than I anticipated), so it might be late Tuesday before the video is done. Sound effects and music still have to be chosen and edited, plus the polishes in the editing. Plus a sneak peak for the next video still has to be rendered, and the outro created. I won’t stop working on it until it’s done, but I wanted to give a heads up. I just don’t want to rush it without cleaning up the edges and presenting it as nicely as I can. So apologies in advance if it’s a little late.
That’s an evident case of WOW, James. All the hard work has paid off. I like the contrast which is created by the shots with the single car and all the other cars falling down. And they seem to never stop falling although the video is only a good minute long - good idea to let the camera travel along with the cars for a wile.
After reading Harley’s post and yours I was just sitting here struggling to remember that clip. Honestly it seems like it was a rainy night and with extreme lighting done in B/W as in a Film Noir style. Only several things were in color including the women’s lips. And, of course being Film Noir she was sucking on a unfiltered Pall Mall. Our male lead had on a old broke down Fedora hat. Obviously a character down on his luck until the caddy pulled up.