DT-Side Chat Thread v. The Blu-Ray is out so I changed the friggin' title

[BlobVanDam]

Do you have any work posted up anywhere?

Aaaaaaaah. Um, yes but none of my recent stuff. SO yes but not necessarily stuff I want people see. Oh wait no I have a reel. It isn't the best but hey I can share if you want to look at a bunch of student work. xD

I'd like to see it! I know first hand how long it takes to learn 3D, and I know how bad I was after only two and a half years, and I was only self taught.

[Onno]

Although if I get to hear Octavarium, ACOS and LTL live in my lifetime, I can die happy.

FTFM

[Whatsername]

Ahhhh okay fine, but be gentle!

www.lianapenadesign.com

That has the breakdown of the work I did in each shot too.

Although if I get to hear Octavarium, ACOS and LTL live in my lifetime, I can die happy.

FTFM

This all the way. Though I'd have to add WFS too.

[wasteland]

Every time I see those 3D animation I am left speechless. It's basically sorcery to me, and mind, I am physics student, I can't believe in sorcery. 

[Whatsername]

Every time I see those 3D animation I am left speechless. It's basically sorcery to me, and mind, I am physics student, I can't believe in sorcery. 

Haha, you kidding me? Physics is like sorcery. The equations and stuff are insane. I walked into my Physics 101 class and sat down, and my professor began writing formulas on the board and my heart just dropped. I'm really not good at math, which is why I gravitated towards a field that has very little math in it.

[?]

Both physics and 3D are sorcery to me

[BlobVanDam]

Although if I get to hear Octavarium, ACOS and LTL live in my lifetime, I can die happy.

FTFM

I hope you're not expecting that all at one show.

Ahhhh okay fine, but be gentle!

www.lianapenadesign.com

That has the breakdown of the work I did in each shot too.

That's not bad at all. Better than any animation I was doing after that amount of time, and I didn't have any concept of edge flow for a long time.

Both physics and 3D are sorcery to me

So I guess the concept of me using the physics engine in 3D is pure witchcraft?

[Whatsername]

I hope you're not expecting that all at one show.

HEY, WE CAN DREAM.

That's not bad at all. Better than any animation I was doing after that amount of time, and I didn't have any concept of edge flow for a long time.

THANKS! I took Organic Modeling as an elective, and the professor helped teach us the concept of edge flow. It took about 3/4 of the term before I was able to wrap my head around it, but it made modeling faces for animation SOOO much easier. And it's amazing because I love how much I'm seeing myself improve, just in the past year or so.

[Whatsername]

So I guess the concept of me using the physics engine in 3D is pure witchcraft?

You've sold your soul to the devil! Seriously, physics are the hardest thing for me. Also my laptop can't really handle it so I run into issues in that regard too.

[BlobVanDam]

That's not bad at all. Better than any animation I was doing after that amount of time, and I didn't have any concept of edge flow for a long time.

THANKS! I took Organic Modeling as an elective, and the professor helped teach us the concept of edge flow. It took about 3/4 of the term before I was able to wrap my head around it, but it made modeling faces for animation SOOO much easier. And it's amazing because I love how much I'm seeing myself improve, just in the past year or so.

Modeling an accurate looking face with a good sense of edge flow is difficult at any level. I haven't modeled a head from scratch since about 2006. I just keep reusing the same basic model, and fixing it up a little better each time. Unicyclist clown was the latest incarnation of that model.
I have a nice big library of stuff I've modeled now, which always comes in handy for putting together videos.

So I guess the concept of me using the physics engine in 3D is pure witchcraft?

You've sold your soul to the devil! Seriously, physics are the hardest thing for me. Also my laptop can't really handle it so I run into issues in that regard too.

I don't know about in Maya, but in 3DS Max, the physics is really easy to set up, and a simple setup simulates quite fast on my PC.

[wasteland]

When you guys speak of "physics" in that context, what do you actually mean?

[Whatsername]

Modeling an accurate looking face with a good sense of edge flow is difficult at any level. I haven't modeled a head from scratch since about 2006. I just keep reusing the same basic model, and fixing it up a little better each time. Unicyclist clown was the latest incarnation of that model.
I have a nice big library of stuff I've modeled now, which always comes in handy for putting together videos.

Oh yeah, I'm not skilled enough to edit the faces I already have, so I end up recreating them from scratch. But every single time the model turns out better, so eventually I'll be able to start reusing the model. I'm trying to build up a library, but it takes the time.

I don't know about in Maya, but in 3DS Max, the physics is really easy to set up, and a simple setup simulates quite fast on my PC.

It isn't hard to set up per se, but my laptop is about 2 1/2 years old and its age is beginning to show sadly. I want to build my own desktop that can just demolish this 3D stuff, but I have to get a place of my own first, so that pipe dream will have to wait.

[Whatsername]

I think Blob would do better answering the physics question.

[BlobVanDam]

When you guys speak of "physics" in that context, what do you actually mean?

3D graphics can use a physics engine to simulate objects acting against each other realistically, taking into account properties such as gravity, mass etc. Video games use them a lot these days, for crumbling buildings, or smashing cars into each other, or pushing boxes around, etc.

I've used physics simulations for dominoes knocking each other down, or animating billiard balls etc.

You can set up the properties of each object (initial velocity, friction, mass) and then just let the program automatically simulate the outcome for you, so everything moves realistically.

[Whatsername]

Billiard balls... Oh that was my first attempt at physics. It failed. Miserably. I think I actually still have the file floating around somewhere. I should see if I can get it working.

[BlobVanDam]

Billiard balls... Oh that was my first attempt at physics. It failed. Miserably. I think I actually still have the file floating around somewhere. I should see if I can get it working.

Worked quite nicely for me! I just animated the pool cue going through the ball, and it handled the rest quite nicely.

My old computer cried at simulating 300 dominoes though. The animation data alone ended up being about 200mb for less than half a minute.

[wasteland]

I remember reading about the way 3D renders are made. The amount of complicated physics there (not difficult, complicated!) nearly made me faint in shock. That thing where every light beam is made to interact with the model of the surface that is the object and the reflection is calculated consequently.

[Whatsername]

Worked quite nicely for me! I just animated the pool cue going through the ball, and it handled the rest quite nicely.

My old computer cried at simulating 300 dominoes though. The animation data alone ended up being about 200mb for less than half a minute.

In my defense, that was the first assignment for hands-down the WORST class I've taken at my school. It was our Computer Animation II class and I ended up having to teach the professor half the stuff. He was a Hollywood compositing artist. His strength was Nuke. He hadn't touched Maya in years. I learned very very little from that class.

And woooooww that's a lot of data.

[BlobVanDam]

I remember reading about the way 3D renders are made. The amount of complicated physics there (not difficult, complicated!) nearly made me faint in shock. That thing where every light beam is made to interact with the model of the surface that is the object and the reflection is calculated consequently.

Yep, 3D rendering does a crazy amount of calculations. It takes literally 2-3 days per frame for a modern Hollywood movie to render on one computer. I have to limit myself to a mere fraction of that for obvious reasons.

[hefdaddy42]

I dunno WTF any of you are talking about.

[BlobVanDam]

I dunno WTF any of you are talking about.

We're talking about MS Paint.

[Zydar]

3D

[Whatsername]

I dunno WTF any of you are talking about.

We're talking about MS Paint.

Whenever I have people ask me how I do 3D things, there's that moment where I want to explain it, but I know that they won't really follow me. So I've taken to just waving my hands and saying "magic!" It's usually a pretty satisfactory answer.

[hefdaddy42]

I dunno WTF any of you are talking about.

We're talking about MS Paint.

Doesn't help.

[BlobVanDam]

3D

Amateur. Mine are real glasses.

Whenever I have people ask me how I do 3D things, there's that moment where I want to explain it, but I know that they won't really follow me. So I've taken to just waving my hands and saying "magic!" It's usually a pretty satisfactory answer.

The worst is when people ask "how did you make that?" Where do I even begin to explain that? Are you really asking me to condense the entire process of creating a video into one sentence? GAH!

[Whatsername]

Whenever I have people ask me how I do 3D things, there's that moment where I want to explain it, but I know that they won't really follow me. So I've taken to just waving my hands and saying "magic!" It's usually a pretty satisfactory answer.

The worst is when people ask "how did you make that?" Where do I even begin to explain that? Are you really asking me to condense the entire process of creating a video into one sentence? GAH!

I still stand by "magic" as a valid answer.




On a totally unrelated note, I really hate developing Flash banners.

[wasteland]

Alright, then. How do you do 3D things?

[Whatsername]

Alright, then. How do you do 3D things?

Magic!

[wasteland]

Alright, then. How do you do 3D things?

Magic!

Details! By the way, if the name on the blog is actually yours, it sounds rather funny in Italian 

[Whatsername]

Details! By the way, if the name on the blog is actually yours, it sounds rather funny in Italian 

Name on the blog? As in the web site I linked? Yep that's my name.

And uh... HELP BLOB HOW DO I EXPLAIN.

[?]

By the way, if the name on the blog is actually yours, it sounds rather funny in Italian 

The last name also sounds kind of comical in Finnish, because Pena is a nickname for men called Pentti

[Whatsername]

It's actually Spanish. The full surname is "de Peņa" which means "of the rocks." But over time the "de" was dropped, and no one can figure out how to pronounce it properly, so it became Pena.

Gee thanks guys, you're giving me a complex about my name now!

[?]

Sorry, my intention was not to make you embarrassed of your name My name is "city" or "town" in French

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I remember reading about the way 3D renders are made. The amount of complicated physics there (not difficult, complicated!) nearly made me faint in shock. That thing where every light beam is made to interact with the model of the surface that is the object and the reflection is calculated consequently.

Yep, 3D rendering does a crazy amount of calculations. It takes literally 2-3 days per frame for a modern Hollywood movie to render on one computer. I have to limit myself to a mere fraction of that for obvious reasons.

That reminded me of this article I just read about Pixar's Monsters University:

https://venturebeat.com/2013/04/24/the-making-of-pixars-latest-technological-marvel-monsters-university/

Even with all of that computing might, it still takes 29 hours to render a single frame of Monsters University, according to supervising technical director Sanjay Bakshi.

All told, it has taken more than 100 million CPU hours to render the film in its final form. If you used one CPU to do the job, it would have taken about 10,000 years to finish. With all of those CPUs that Pixar did have, it took a couple of years to render.

Holy tits!

[aprilethereal]