Photoreal animation straight from SU

[kwistenbiebel]

Hi SU folks,

Is it possible to render photoreal animations straight from sketchup?

answer: IT IS !

(And it's not that difficult )

See here:
[EDIT: I updated the movie: longer version this time and brightness/saturation balanced:
(Click on the center of the image to view):
[flash=425,355:34ykztof]http://www.youtube.com/v/U-hZON6peOE&hl=en[/flash:34ykztof]

Regards,
Kwistenbiebel

[Whaat]

VERY cool!!! hope to see some more!

[Frederik]

Sorry...
How's this impressive..??
I don't find it looking very photorealistic and to be honest I'm not impressed by the time it took to render this...
2.5 hours render time in this quality is not impressive IMHO...!
I feel sure that you're going to see other render engines that will be capable of generating similar quality, but made in real time within the next year...

@kwistenbiebel said:

Is it possible to render photoreal animations straight from sketchup?

How do you mean straight..??
Don't you need to leave SU..??
Is it like in "Podium straight"..??

[kwistenbiebel]

Skindigo makes a batch.exe file which needs to be double clicked to start the rendering of the animation.
So it's almost straight from SU.
The animation is saved as .png files (frames).
With 'windows movie maker' (which comes with Vista and XP) the playable .wmv animation is made swiftly.

[kwistenbiebel]

I updated the movie in the first post.

The movie is longer now and light is corrected.

@Frederick: Please bare with me. This is my first attempt ever on making an animation.
I am on a learning curve here so I hope I can improve my skills in time. thanks for understanding...

[Frederik]

@kwistenbiebel said:

@Frederick: Please bare with me. This is my first attempt ever on making an animation.
I am on a learning curve here so I hope I can improve my skills in time. thanks for understanding...

Chris, you don't need to apologize to me...
Thanks to you, I've seen some amazing renders made using Indigo lately, but I'm not particular impressed with the quality in this animation and the time it took to render...

As you know, photoreal animation has been available in KT for more than a year now and it's fairly simple to set-up and use...

[kwistenbiebel]

Ok, when it sucks , it sucks. Oh well...

[kwistenbiebel]

Thanks modelhead.
And yes it is true.
Each frame was rendered for 1,5 minutes so one can't expect a perfect animation.

At the moment I am cooking two more animation experiments which I will post in the render gallery, as it is a more suited section for these things I guess.

[vkirchner]

You have accomplished something that I hope to complete, but I need a little more information to get this project moving. My goal is to create a driving animation through a German City, which requires the camera to follow a path while rendering the suitable frame per second needed to compile into a nice animation. I would like the camera to follow a complex path or can I only follow a straight line, I do not know this, can someone answer this for me?

Regardless of the path issue, assuming a the camera can follow a path. What do I need to use for this, the Physics plugin or some other plugin, or is this built into the base Sketchup software? Sorry if these seem like simple questions that I should know, but I have not been using Sketchup too long, only for a few days assembling thte German City itself, now comes the part of animation to create the necessary frames for the final movie.

Regarding the rendering, I have loaded the Kerkythea renderer because it is free and it works well with Sketchup materials, because I do not have time to create new Kerkthea materials and apply them. How does the animation get fed into the renderer to create the necessary frames? Does it use the animation info stored in the Sketchup database?

Please, if someone would be kind enough to go slow and explain this I would be grateful.

Vince Kirchner
Guardian Automotive Products
Cad System Administrator
North America

[vkirchner]

PS. Did I mention that the movie would be used for VW, BMW, and Porsche?

[kwistenbiebel]

I don't want to disappoint you, but current sketchup, including the animation plugins and/or Sketchyphysics, just cannot do the job properly.

Object animation (moving cars etc...) is possible with SU, but it is very handicapped and limited.
Actually, current 'object animation' capability is merely a hack in SU, and not natively supported at all.
To get it rendered photoreal (Fry Render is the only one I know that can render object animation in a SU combo currently) , you must be able to start from a 'scene tab' animation with a different scene tab for each and every animation frame. Be prepared to have hundreds of scene tabs in your scene.
Sketchyphysics does not allow you to make a scene tab animation like that. 'Proper animation ruby' neither.

The only object animation plugin that allows you to make a 'scene tab' animation currently is the 'Su animate' plugin.
However, the produced results aren't satisfying when rendering it with photoreal render software. It is too choppy.

I would suggest porting your Sketchup files to Cinema 4D, as that software has a much better (object) animator and it supports all the big photoreal render engines as well.

I hope this helps....

Regards,
Kwistenbiebel

As a note: I hope native object animation will be supported in SU 7, as well as improved setup of camera animation paths (read: more fluent paths + more realistic camera behaviour).

[vkirchner]

Thank you for the quick response. I can simplify the path to a straight line if the motion can keep a constant speed from the starting point to the end point. No part of the car is used in the rendering, only a camera following a path through the village. Can the "SU Animate" do this?

The final render animation need not be photorealistic, but it cannot be cartoonish like the standard Sketchup windows either. To save time and energy, I planned to use many models from the 3D Warehouse with slight modifications to complete the task in a reasonable timeframe. I have tried to take many Sketchup models into Rhino4.0 with mixed results. Normally the textures are skewed, distorted, or omitted. I have tried Softimage also but the textures are always an issue. I suspect that C4D will also be this way, do you have any experience with the texture issue?

I have acess to the following packages and renderers.

Rhino3.0 with Flamingo, Penguin, Treefrog, and Rhinorender
Rhino4.0 with Rhinorender
Softimage with Mental Ray, and Indigo
Carrara 5.0 Pro
Bryce 6.0
Light3D from Optis (http://www.optis-world.com)http://www.optis-world.com/new_pages/archi_lighting/lighting.asp

Regards
Vince

[vkirchner]

Thank you, I will look at the suggested scripts.

Regards
Vince

[kwistenbiebel]

If no object animation will be used, yes, Suanimate or flightpath2 are helpful to get smoother animation paths.

Suanimate:http://www.ohyeahcad.com/suanimate/

flightpath2.rb on the smustard website:
http://www.smustard.com/script/FlightPath2

They both are commercial plugins .
I wish they had demos to try them out before buying.
(some youtube clips to accurately show how the flightpath2.rb works would help)

[plot-paris]

just bought flightpath2 two days ago (7$ is not that much). you have more advanced control over the camera focus compared to the (free) first version of flightpath. you can for example choose on path for the camera motion and another one for the camera aim. you can get quite sleak results. only important thing is to check that your path is smooth enough (has enough vertexes).

I would suggest you try flighpath for free. with this version the camera will always point straigt in the direction of the path.

if you need more control, go for flightpath2

[vkirchner]

Thanks, I did not realize that the older script was free. It sounds like it will do everything that I need, so as soon as I can get the models inserted, then I can smooth a spline and give it a try.

Thanks
Vince

[vkirchner]

I cannot tell if the free script will hide the path curve, that would ruin a nice driving animation if the path curve is visible. That would make the $7.00 cost to obtain the newest script mandatory.

[plot-paris]

as far as I know, it does put the path on a layer, which is hidden.

if it doesn't, you can do that manually. or you could even delete the path for it is not necessary anymore once the scenes are created (not advisable though, in case you want to redo the animation-generation)

something that can really help you in terms of flexibility is to select all scenes (with Shift) of your animation and then uncheck all checkboxes in the scene editor except for camera position. thus you can change things like styles or shadow settings lateron. you could even create scene tabs for different styles (with the "include in animation" box unchecked)...

[vkirchner]

Wow, that really sounds like a powerful option. Then I could create pencil drawn style, and possibly a Sin City style.

[Julius]

@plot-paris said:

just bought flightpath2 two days ago (7$ is not that much). you have more advanced control over the camera focus compared to the (free) first version of flightpath. you can for example choose on path for the camera motion and another one for the camera aim. you can get quite sleak results. only important thing is to check that your path is smooth enough (has enough vertexes).

I would suggest you try flighpath for free. with this version the camera will always point straigt in the direction of the path.

if you need more control, go for flightpath2

there's also a free script called flightpathtool (you can find it at http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/em_cam_page.htm)

features of the three scripts:

flightpath:

1. Target: Camera Path Nodes creates pages with the camera looking toward the next vertex of the camera path

flightpathtool:

1. Target: Camera Path Nodes creates pages with the camera looking toward the next vertex of the camera path

2. NEW! Target: Single Point asks you for a single point that is the focus for the camera as it moves along the path

3. NEW! Target: Two Points asks for two points. As the camera moves along the path, the target point moves between the two selected points
   flightpath2:

4. Target: Camera Path Nodes creates pages with the camera looking toward the next vertex of the camera path

5. NEW! Target: Single Point asks you for a single point that is the focus for the camera as it moves along the path

6. NEW! Target: Two Points asks for two points. As the camera moves along the path, the target point moves between the two selected points

7. NEW! Target: Path allows you to select a target path. <---so basically you pay the 7$ only for this.