Animation resolution

[Malcolm Nye]

Hi all

 

I've been hired to do an animation of a mining camp dining hall.  The animation starts in the lobby and travels through to the dining hall.  The animation is 750 frames long at 640x480 and 25 passes each frame.  It has been running for just over 24 hours and I have a total of 175 frames completed.  So that translates to 4.5 days, which makes it so I will not make the deadline.  Oh, there are over one hundred lights, (the typical 4x2 flourescents found in industrial dining halls), about thirty windows and enough table and chairs to fill a large dining hall.

 

Is there a way to reduce the time required to do the frames by faking the lights etc?

 

Also, the lighting of each frame is not consistent and may be distracting during the animation, is there a way to correct that?

 

Thanks

Malcolm

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

You're in big trouble.  25 passes per frame won't be nearly enough to resolve that many lights-- and not even close when you add daylighting.  Interior daylighting can take a long time all by itself.  Consider using panoramas.  One user was able to produce a scripted panorama presentation as a canned animation.  See this thread.

[Ros. Riha]

 

what I would do if I were in your situation:

1. I would optimize the scene: 
   1. Use Deep Exploration or similar to reduce the polygon count
   2. Simplify the lighting, reduce the number of reflections/refractions
   3. Simplify your materials - get rid of as many textures or procedurals as possible
2. I would employ more computers - in our office, we have couple of nXt licenses, so we divide the whole animation amongst them - you can buy the license online if you need it this badly.
3. I would cheat: the reality and the feeling of an animation are distinct:
   1. You surely can reduce the number of lights - nobody will notice.
   2. You can surely skip some stuff - nobody will notice.

Fingers crossed for you to meet the deadline.... personally, I love deadlines - especially that swooshing sound they make as they pass by (Douglas Adams)

[Chas / Aug Posekany]

Don't loose your towel in case you need a quick exit.

[akinlolu olugboji]

You also loop parts of all the animation. Render say 100 frames then make a U-turn, instead of rendering backwards, use adobe preimier or similar to invert the already hundred frames and stich it at the end of the loop, more frames less work.  

[Kevin Lockwood]

Also rendering a single frame at like 640x12000 gives you a long still image that can be panned across to look like the camera is panning across it.