Looking for a good software for rendered animations

brodie · 13 Feb 2009, 19:39

Cool, thanks for the resource. Looks like it should be very helpful. We've gotten some trees and cars from Dosch but actually the trees are all messed up.

Right now we've been doing SU animations so we've gotten by w/o real animation but since we're upgrading to rendered flythroughs it seemed like a good idea to have more options than less. Anything to add some extra cool factor.

-Brodie

Ecuadorian · 14 Feb 2009, 16:51

I used MAX for years, and I developed a deep love/hate relationship with its radiosity engine. And yes, stuff for MAX is almost always messed up and you have to correct scale/re-link textures, etc. Also, when you re-import your scene to MAX after making changes, you have to re-apply all materials again, or at least that was the way things worked with the last version I used. I made the link with my modeller via .3ds files. And don´t even get me started about how .max files would get bloated when working with radiosity, how your textures will look washed out when using Logarithmic exposure control (unless you edit the curve for every single texture), and how much of a memory hog radiosity is. That´s why some people ignore MAX´s scanline renderer and buy Vray for MAX, so you have to factor in that additional cost and training time.

So, if you don´t need moving cars and people, I highly recommend you try Kerkythea. Even if you finally decide for MAX, you´ll have some invaluable training on the basics of different rendering methods with Kerky. MAX is really THE standard for animation and you will find tons of MAX-specific help on the net, but it will take a long time to master.

EarthMover · 14 Feb 2009, 17:17

Max is a great choice. With Mental Ray standard in Max, not many bother with the scanline anymore. Vray is my cup of tea, but like Equadorian said, kerky or even indigo would be good (free) secondary options. I find pretty good translation between sketchup and Max using .3ds extension and I haven't had too much of a problem with texture coordinates not being preserved. Something may require a quick UV mapping modifier, but I think this is a blessing and not a curse. I wish sketchup had this feature.

Max is just one of those programs that is not "obvious" in it's workflow right off the bat. It takes a lot of understanding how to use the tools at hand to make things like selection a lot easier. The material editor is what always confused me at first, but now I understand it and it's pretty easy. Max has always reminded me of a cluttered closet, where new stuff get's shoved in every year, without reorganizing and tidying up the existing mess. But, like most creative types, I have a hard time functioning without a little clutter around me.

If I could recommend......check out this tutorial for animating in Max - http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=3552

It's the best one of I've seen and the price is not bad. I've watched it twice so far, and probably have to watch it another 3 or 4 times before I grasp all the information contained within it.

kwistenbiebel · 14 Feb 2009, 17:20

Hi Ecuadorian,

I don't know prices by heart, but buying 3Dsmax AND Vray will cost you an arm and a leg.
Why spend thousands and thousands of dollars....if Google would just put its mind to it and would make the Sketchup animation just a little bit more smooth ....

At the office we ran through a range of animation solutions but all were heaps over budget, especially considering it is just to have a PR animation solution.

People who bought VrayForSketchup or Maxwell for Sketchup just cannot justify an extra purchase like that.
Hello Google !

brodie · 15 Feb 2009, 17:21

Thanks for all the info. I will check out that link, EarthMover.

So Kerky does animations? How does that work? I played with Kerky awhile back and it seemed to have some promise but that was back when I was looking for a still-image renderer, not an animation tool. Does it just export your SU animation or can you configure your own camera w/in Kerky? And it doesn't do animated cars and such?

-Brodie

Frederik · 15 Feb 2009, 19:12

@unknownuser said:

So Kerky does animations? How does that work?

Ooohhh yeah... You've been able to make animations with KT since KT2007...

You can check out the A quick clay animation... I posted a while back...

@unknownuser said:

Does it just export your SU animation or can you configure your own camera w/in Kerky?

Well... The scenes you set in SU will become your camera points in KT, but you can add camera positions as well in KT...

Please check out the Walkthrough Animation Step-by-Step tutorial available from our repository...
Although it was written for KT2007 the basics remain identical for KT2008 Echo...

@unknownuser said:

And it doesn't do animated cars and such?

It is possible, but is not that easy...

brodie · 15 Feb 2009, 22:24

Great, that's good to know. I might have to test that out. I glanced through the walkthrough briefly but I'll really have to go through it again w/ Kerky open to grasp it all. It mentioned setting the number of threads in one of the settings menus. Will Kerky take advantage of a quad-core machine?

Also, you don't have to explain the details, but you mentioned that it uses the SU cameras at keyframes but that you can add more. I guess the question is, how much does that help the issues w/ SU's camera pathing? For instance the jerky starting and stoping of the camera (sort of like flying around a building in one of those teacups at a carnival).

By the way, your animation looked very good. I was very impressed by the sky in the background, super realistic. HDRI?

-Brodie

Frederik · 16 Feb 2009, 05:48

@unknownuser said:

Will Kerky take advantage of a quad-core machine?

Yes...

@unknownuser said:

...you mentioned that it uses the SU cameras at keyframes but that you can add more. I guess the question is, how much does that help the issues w/ SU's camera pathing? For instance the jerky starting and stoping of the camera (sort of like flying around a building in one of those teacups at a carnival).

The SU2KT plug-in have it's own animation export function, which will generate a kst-script... This will make the animation in KT identical to SU...
However, if you use the build-in "Walkthrough Animation", then it's different and you won't have the same jerky animation between camera transitions...
Make sure you tick the "Interpolation"...

@unknownuser said:

By the way, your animation looked very good. I was very impressed by the sky in the background, super realistic. HDRI?

Thanks...
Yes - it's a HDRI from Dosch Design ...

Frederik · 19 Feb 2009, 20:48

Not sure if you saw my latest reply, Brodie...

Anyway... Here's the latest - and very impressive - animation rendered with KT by one of the KT Team members, Grzegorz Rakoczy (Grzybu)...

@unknownuser said:

Here is short ~40s animation with this scene: http://grzybu.hostings.pl/3d/natural_history.avi (~5MB, xvid, 800x450)
Render time was about 20h in 1280x720 on single quad.

The original model is from an already closed lighting challenge http://www.3drender.com/challenges/
Models were made by Alvaro Luna & Joel Anderson...

Here's some renders I made of that model...

Gaieus · 19 Feb 2009, 20:58

Great movie, Kim!
(Although I'm afraid that TyRex is falling apart...)

Frederik · 20 Feb 2009, 05:38

@gaieus said:

Great movie, Kim!

Credit goes to Grzybu...

@gaieus said:

(Although I'm afraid that TyRex is falling apart...)

Yeah...

Gaieus · 20 Feb 2009, 08:48

@frederik said:

Credit goes to Grzybu...

I know...

BTW Rakoczy (or spelled rather like Rákóczi in Hungarian) is among the top historic personalities in Hungarian history (if there are only three streets in a small village,one is definitely named after him):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II_R%C3%A1k%C3%B3czi

but certainly has nothing to do with that TyRex.

Starlex · 25 Feb 2009, 22:06

And what about SU Animate 2.0 for Podium?

Has anyone work with?

I'm searching for universal tool, mostly to do walkthrought animation
Tryed Artlantis... Can't say, I was impressed. I render in Podium static, and then must tune Artlantis render properties... It's not easy and quick*(

Ecuadorian · 25 Feb 2009, 22:53

@starlex said:

And what about SU Animate 2.0 for Podium?
Has anyone work with?

Mmmm... A smooth animation runs at 30 frames per second, which means that for a short, 2-minute presentation of a project, you will be rendering 3600 images. And my videos are usually 5 or more minutes long. According to the product page, SU Animate creates a scene in SketchUp for every single frame of the animation. Having a SketchUp file with thousands of scenes does not seem very practical to me, and according to the Podium forum, it often only renders a part of the scenes, meaning you can't simply leave it rendering overnight and go to sleep.

There's an alternative, though: Podium Animate, a free script created by user SaphuA. However, it still is not a really practical solution for camera-only animation for two reasons:

Podium will have to re-make the Photon Map for every frame, which means a big overhead.
You will still have to suffer jerky SketchUp camera movement.

But if you MUST have object animation and don't want to summon the all-powerful 3dsMAX, you could try combining this method (Podium + Podium animate) with the "Proper animation" Plug-in. But I have to tell you, if you really need good-looking object/people/car animation, then you are better off using MAX, with all its shortcomings. You can use independent illumination for static vs animated objects. That way, you can simply use the Radiosity mesh for illuminating everything that does not move, and a few omnis for the moving parts. For camera-only animation (aka Fly-through, Walk-through), use Kerkythea. I haven't used Mental Ray, but it seems to use an implementation of the Photon Mapping method, as Kerky does.

I'll do a test to see exactly how much overhead making a camera-only animation in Podium adds, vs. making it in Kerkythea. I'll use the Warehouse model with identical settings to make a fair comparison. Give me a few hours...

Ecuadorian · 26 Feb 2009, 10:12

Why not do it in Podium? Someone made a Plug-in for it so it can make animations.

26-Feb EDIT:
I take it back. Check my test results in the second page of this thread.

kwistenbiebel · 26 Feb 2009, 10:43

@ecuadorian said:

If you need camera-only animation, use Kerkythea. If you need animated cars and people, use 3dsMAX.

...or cinema4D, or Modo.
The latter is a bit of a hype at the moment, as it is reasonably priced and a full suite a la Max but without the Autodesk fascism.

Starlex · 26 Feb 2009, 13:07

Ok, I tryed SU Animate Eval and bored while it renders too, and I'm should to concent with you considering SU Animate cam paths

Searching in progress... I'm waisting time with this(

Will try Kerkythea.
Miguel, can you be so kind to link couple videos to see Kerky animation output? Thanks

added: I don't understand how does camera move in Kerkythea?
Should I use su animate to do camera path?

Starlex · 26 Feb 2009, 14:52

So, I can share my Kerkythea experience:
I download and install Kerky app and add SU Plugin
After that several icons appeared in SU. By pushing on the first I get export dialog. And after this, nothing is happen, .xml file does not appear in chosen folder. Thats all

So... More useable result was produced by SU Anim)

Frederik · 26 Feb 2009, 14:56

@starlex said:

Miguel, can you be so kind to link couple videos to see Kerky animation output? Thanks

I've already linked to a couple in this thread...
But I suggest that you make a search at the KT Forum ...

@starlex said:

added: I don't understand how does camera move in Kerkythea?
Should I use su animate to do camera path?

You can use the camera path from SU, but you can also use the build-in "Walkthrough Animation..."

Please check out the Walkthrough Animation Step-by-Step tutorial available from our download section...

It's really very easy...

Frederik · 26 Feb 2009, 14:59

@starlex said:

So, I can share my Kerkythea experience:
I download and install Kerky app and add SU Plugin
After that several icons appeared in SU. By pushing on the first I get export dialog. And after this, nothing is happen, .xml file does not appear in chosen folder. Thats all

So... More useable result was produced by SU Anim)

Make sure that your path doesn't contain any letters outside the English alphabet... (I.e. é, ö etc...)

A lot of users can get things to work, and I'm sure you can as well...