Animating Water Spray
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You're a champion Roland. Am just waiting to hear back on the fabled renderable GIF in TWR2.
The power of animation within sketchup with a lot of what I do is that we make rapid changes - stakeholders see the project animated and suddenly want a raft of changes that they didn't realize they wanted when they saw the original drawing.
This has a lot of power and adds to the iterative beauty of SU.
I have done a lot of elementary animations with Keyframe Animation, Proper Animation, Simfonia Animation Tools and SketchyPhysics. The powerfull element has always been that people can see the idea actually working, ask for some changes and see it working 24 hours later with the changes made. While this is possible with other workflows its a little more time intensive and therefore stressful. I'm not sure stressful is the reason I got into SU in the first place - more like "maximum return with minimum input".
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@unknownuser said:
The power of animation within Sketchup with a lot of what I do is that we make rapid changes -
Lumion is for real-time animated development. The design workflow allows for rapid iterations. Lumion renders animations in minutes not hours. It is just in another league. I am sorry they have placed such a large price tag on it. It certainly limits it's exposure.
Remember how much fun Sketchup was the first day? Lumion...the same...
You are running out of time.....
...sorry! that's not very nice. 
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Don't worry, 90% of the animated objects are ordered in SU using keyframe - I can run a hi-res direct export from SU if I need to. But as we all know; the details are what really impress people so am trying to make it really "pop".
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I hope you are able to attempt it in some form. It will be interesting.
Good luck!! -
@unknownuser said:
Pete is the one that popped up on this (excuse the alliteration) If he says blender is possible then I believe him. I know that his conscience will also bother him to see you struggling so he will be a source of support. I would take advantage of his wisdom and go for it.
Not this time,I'm way to busy to be bothered with my conscience.
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Currently melting my CPU as we speak - not sure what protection Windows offers for CPU core temperature but I hit 104 degrees celsius before HP coolsense said "sleep time".
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I see you are hard at it.
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Wondered about putting ice near it but that would probably just ingest water vapour
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I am a bit over kill considering the outside temp is -20
My cooling system doesn't work very hard.
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This was posted this morning by a newcomer to the Lumion Forum.
It was created with the latest release, Lumion Pro 5.
This would have been an afternoon job not an epic. -
This is not raytracing right? Its some other form of rendering?
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Yes...with a big No. What kind of an answer is that?
Well it is complicated and best described by someone who is familiar with and uses the various algorithms for ray tracing. So I am going to give you the version best understood by someone like me...or any other assortment of children...
In it's purest form rendering is about non-biased ray-tracing. So it is about what protons do when they are unleashed in an environment. That requires a lot of number crunching...can you imagine trying to chase one of those light balls around to see what it does...and then try to record all that data while you are doing it. So this is why there is an on-going discussion about render times and why the f*ck is this taking so long. Non-biased renders are the absolute best and the closest we are coming to physically correct but they take time. Hence "render farming"Now the "yes" part of this answer is that Lumion is like a video game. It is basically a game engine. Game engines are big pieces of software to but for a different reason. Lumion is an environment that has been inspired by ray-tracing to create a bunch of premade and pre-baked effects that simulate, to the best ability of the artist, a real world ambience. Instead of running the slow ray-tracing algorithm every time someone turns on a light, assumptions are made about what things should look like from the experience of creating them with real ray-tracing algorithms in the first place. Then suitable effects are applied to create a simulation. This increases the speed of the image creation by I'm sure close to a full order of magnitude.
The ray-tracing business will eventually get a hardware boost that will make it possible to have a more real-time like experience.....so all bets are off for the future but for now I think the real-time engine guys are heading for the lead and will be able to more readily adopt the algorithms into their products as they become viable in terms of time overhead.
OK so now if you are confused...so am I...
...maybe someone else will help with a better and more technical explanation. -
It is my opinion that no mater how you create your rendering the underlying modeling is what pushes it over the top. I see some recent Podium renders that will blow you away. I know the mesh is very advanced under the covers. The guy modeling knows his stuff. That is why you see so much cartoonish Lumion...because you don't have to be a modeller to make it work. But if you are a great (hard working) modeller you can make just about anything look good and real with Lumion or any other rendering software.
I am an average modeller but Lumion and Sketchup make it possible for me to create interesting NPR images from rag tag resourses...i.e. this image/model was created from StreetViews only. At best the images where poor quality but came to life with a good model.
There are lots of little errors in the render...backwards bumps..etc...but pretty good effects considering this has a 6 second render time. (most of the mistakes are in the modeling)
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Great explanation - I hadn't fully reconciled why games looked so good yet ray tracing took so long. Are there any other biased renderers that are good (not necessarily on par with Lumion) that don't case more than a new laptop?
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@unknownuser said:
that don't cost more than a new laptop?
I think you meant cost?
I hear you but you should check the cost of your own time and then think about what it is you are trying to achieve. I think you will see Lumion as a bargain.
Basically I need a finished image that my customers will pay for and I have that with Lumion. They are satisfied...interior/exterior/product...etc...no problem for the people I deal with. If I show them a rendering from a person that is a pro with a raytracer they will go "wow!!" no doubt but they don't see it as a significant difference in quality.....many can't afford it for still shots....forget about animation. (If that makes me a bottom feeder then so be it, I'm getting paid.)
You will spend many hours trying to set-up and tweak your ray-tracer and thousands of hours reviewing and editing...literally thousands of iterations.
In Lumion you spend most of your time on material creation and application, composition, design choices/versions, shot selection, proofing editing etc. and little time rendering.
Of course there will be times you have to tie up your machine but that will be for massive models stretching for many kilometers. -
Oh sorry...you wanted to know about other software you will find a list somewhere on the forum but I'm not going to say cause I'm spoiled, I'm afraid I can't be objective cause I have had many hours with Lumion and basically a handful with a few others. I didn't like any of the other I tried.
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If I end up buying Lumion I think they should pay you a commission
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@unknownuser said:
I think they should pay you a commission
If you do join the forum you will see that I am like you. I can only afford to hold version 3.2.1. The current pro version is 5. I need to shell out another 1500 to get to 5. I will get there but for now I am still putting aside a fund. The newest release has many things I want including new sets of trees and plants that are just lushes...but no, they don't know that I am pushing their product here at all and there will be no commission.
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Time has passed...did you get something together?
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I can't show you much because its under NDA but here is the first run with animated GIFs working in Twilight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XW2Iv79BEI
Thats on low animation settings and the GIF isn't working quite right
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