My first render - animation

[Mary]

Here is the link to my first render http://www.mary-in-fl.com/twiren-room-stars-12fps.htm It's a flash animation, and it takes a little time to load. As you can probably tell from the design of the building, I am not an architect! All of the items in the room and outdoors came from the SU 6.0 components and bonus pack. I know it has some shadows and things that need fixing, so I'll have to photoshop those frames. I do flash animations and CG as a hobby, and I had been using a different SU plug-in renderer, but that one didn't do animations. I searched high and low and TwilightRender was the only plug-in I could find that renders photorealistic animations, so thank you for developing this product and keeping the price nice! I've got some ideas of animations that I want to do, and this software really makes it easy.

[Fletch]

animated TV screen, eh?

[Ecuadorian]

I'm also amazed at the video in the TV screen.

Could you share how you did this?

[Mary]

I'm also amazed at the video in the TV screen.

Could you share how you did this?

Thank you! It's not a true video in the sense of an avi file or mpg. It's a series of still images from a video that I apply in sequence to the frames in my flash file. In order to keep everything straight, I made a matrix in an excel spreadsheet to track for each flash frame which twilight frame is displayed and then within that, which tv screen frame is displayed because the tv screen images have to keep changing at an even rate throughout. Once I figured it out, it was just a matter of rendering the tv screens I needed to match the shape and size of the tv in the various twilight frames. I've been thinking about adding some interactivity like a remote control to allow the user to channel surf in the parts of the animation where the tv is visible. Stay tuned!

[Ecuadorian]

So it's a Flash "sub-movie" being distorted to match the perspective? Very clever.

[Mary]

I've changed my animation a little. I added a 3D person that I created with another software and brought into SU, I changed the pool water surface, and I darkened the sky gradient. Rendering time with the new version 1.4 is about half of what it was with version 1.1, using 07 High+ for all the frames. The link is the same as in my previous post above http://www.mary-in-fl.com/twiren-room-stars-12fps.htm It takes a little while to load. Enjoy!

[Fletch]

Rendering time with the new version 1.4 is about half of what it was with version 1.1, using 07 High+ for all the frames.

Saves a ton of time when rendering animations.
The TV looks great! Impressive!

I presume you have posted to ask for advice for improvements?

For your pool, set to "realistic>water" template, and be sure that alpha is "zero" for your water. Then use the light components because there's a pre-made swimming pool light already in them... and try a couple of those in your pool.

Set hotspot and falloff for your spot lights something like 10 hotspot and 60falloff could be a start... there are several free great interior lights available already set up perfectly for you to check and see how they are made.

[Mary]

Rendering time with the new version 1.4 is about half of what it was with version 1.1, using 07 High+ for all the frames.

Saves a ton of time when rendering animations.
The TV looks great! Impressive!

I presume you have posted to ask for advice for improvements?

For your pool, set to "realistic>water" template, and be sure that alpha is "zero" for your water. Then use the light components because there's a pre-made swimming pool light already in them... and try a couple of those in your pool.

Set hotspot and falloff for your spot lights something like 10 hotspot and 60falloff could be a start... there are several free great interior lights available already set up perfectly for you to check and see how they are made.

Thanks for the advice, Fletch! I'll give those suggestions a try!