Hector Rides Again!

[clockmender]

I have been experimenting with compositing movie clips and render layers:

The monkey is not going to be part of the final animation, it’s just there as a test. The Compositor node setup is as below:

I found, after much experimenting, that one must click the “Include Alpha of Second Image” button in the Mix node, in order to get a successful overlay of render layer and movie clip…

I am now cooking the real movie clips so I can produce a full rendered video of the entire animation. Then I will render just the smoke separately and then composite the whole lot together.

Cheers, Clock.

PS any tips on compositing would be gratefully received, I have read much and experimented greatly, but there is no substitute for knowledge from experienced users.

[clockmender]

OK so now I have finally worked out how to stop the smoke flowing through the tunnel roof:

I created a copy of the tunnel, gave it a white transparent material so it does not render and added Collision Physics to it. It has to be a visible layer to interact with the particle system and oddly enough has to be on the same layer as the smoke emitter - this is curious, but seems to be the case. As I want to render the smoke separately, I have to have the tunnel visible to make the smoke stop wen it gets to the roof, but invisible to the camera so it doesn’t show in the “smoke” render - hence the transparent material. Phew - that took some working out. I have also revised the smoke particle object so it is simpler in construction, but looks just as good to me anyway. This has also reduced render times. So the image above is a composite of the scene render (minus the train) and the smoke render, I have added a blur node to the smoke just to smooth any sharp edges a little and have also altered the UV map so the edges of the smoke particle object are away from the “smoke” part of the image texture.

Hmmm seem to be talking to myself again :o

Cheers, Clock.

EDIT:

This is what happens when the train goes under the track, with some of the smoke deflected down into the path of the camera:

Feeling quite pleased with developments…

[ParagonProductions (Para)]

@clockmender

So now I have an interesting situation:

If I render the full view with the smoke it takes about 30 mins per frame. If I render the smoke on its own, with a transparent background it takes less than a minute per frame and if I render the scene without the smoke it takes 3 mins per frame. So rendering them separately it takes about 4 mins per frame and then I use the compositor to add the smoke to the scene render it is much faster - any explanations at all? The smoke looks good when composited onto the scene, the only drawback is there is no shadow from the smoke on the ground. Rendering the smoke and the ground together, then compositing the rest of the scene takes about 5 minutes per frame in total.

I believe the reason for this is that the smoke does not have to interact with as many other particles or objects in the scene. When you put a video or image in the compositor, Blender can skip the lighting and particle simulator for the smoke as it has already been done. This is the same reason some people like to use stock footage for muzzle flashes, explosions, etc. instead of creating the actual effects as that would increase their render times.

[ParagonProductions (Para)]

I like the progress you have made on the animation, but now the scene looks a little too dense. It could just be me and how it looks is completely up to you, but that is just my opinion.

[clockmender]

Thanks for that, I am rendering the individual frames just now and hope to have some video to upload at the end of this week, then I need to do some more compositing and see how it looks. I am not sure about this project but it’s a lot of work down the drain if the finished animation does not look right!!!

Cheers, Clock.

[clockmender]

Here is the latest video:

I have just to add the smoke… :spin:

Cheers, Clock.