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Backyard
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Backyard // Image Gallery
Post by Alien // Jun 6, 2006, 12:33am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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@Alien - the animation is jerky :D possible that it isn't your system. But yes H.264 is the last of the H.2x codecs as far as I know. It needs longer to decode as Divx but has a far better quality - no blocky artefacts, colors are sharp and clear. I like this format, Sorenson 3 is similar which I also use sometimes but H.2x will surely be widely used in the future (HDTV etc.).
I forget which movie it was now, but I tried watching a movie trailer that was encoded in H.264, & my system was only able to handle the lowest quality version. If I could afford 1 of the [ATI] X1xxx series cards it'd probably run a lot smoother, as they have hardware H.264 acceleration, but for now I'm stuck with my 9600 Pro, & only have an Athlon XP3200+ & 2GB RAM. :(
As for DivX - Personally I prefer Xvid, but I've seen stuff done in both that wasn't blocky. |
Post by parva // Jun 11, 2006, 10:45am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Animation (http://www.parva-project.de/stuff/ts/sign.rar) is updated
I used uncompressed avi record instead of camtasias file format (logical the cam format compress the frames during recording) and now it's nearly smooth.
1572
Here a little screenie from the guy who will be part of the upcoming story.
1573
I'm really satisfied with the look from the face which is just one plain texture.
No special shader or alike - a special lighting yes but quit simple. Will try what I get for results with enhanced shading.
I used Scanline/Lightworks render for this because I like the sharp result this methode creates.
Don't know really how I will colorize the suit but well, we will see :)
thanks for viewing |
Post by MadMouse // Jun 11, 2006, 10:53am
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MadMouse
Total Posts: 1069
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WOW incredible Marcel.:cool:
BTW is the animation a little jerky or is my machine struggling to show it for some reason???
The Guy looks great. His suit is very detailed and the face texture works really well considering is all in one.
Great work again mate. Keep them coming.
Steve |
Post by noko // Jun 11, 2006, 1:39pm
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noko
Total Posts: 684
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Yes indeed! Guy looks very good too! :jumpy:
Still no luck in rendering animation to file? |
Post by Alien // Jun 11, 2006, 4:17pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Animation (http://www.parva-project.de/stuff/ts/sign.rar) is updated
I used uncompressed avi record instead of camtasias file format (logical the cam format compress the frames during recording) and now it's nearly smooth.
Not here it isn't, 'cos you're still re-encoding it into H.264, & I only have 1 single-core processor.
You could probably get it jerk-free if you converted the uncompressed AVI to Xvid. I reckon you could probably do that 2min vid in about ~16MB without any really noticeable loss in quality.
Here a little screenie from the guy who will be part of the upcoming story.
Impressive, but then your work usually is. :)
BTW is the animation a little jerky or is my machine struggling to show it for some reason???
No that's because of the codec he's encoded it into. Either you have some serious horsepower sitting in your CPU-socket[s], or you get jerkiness - that's H.264 for you. :( |
Post by parva // Jun 11, 2006, 10:21pm
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Still no luck in rendering animation to file?
The only way I think would be to use keyframes to store the camera motion. Currently I found no way to do that in Player and I don't want to switch and record the motion path of the camera in Modeler. I looking forward for the new animation tools :)
For now it's a proverbial "realtime record" :D
Not here it isn't, 'cos you're still re-encoding it into H.264, & I only have 1 single-core processor.
You could probably get it jerk-free if you converted the uncompressed AVI to Xvid. I reckon you could probably do that 2min vid in about ~16MB without any really noticeable loss in quality.
I meant the recording was done in uncompressed avi (approx 2 gigs=3000 frames for 2 minutes) - yes I used the same codec again, wasn't aware that the codec needs so much power :o
With Xvid I'm not so happy because it extremly grumpy sometimes. At unusual framesizes the encoder often didn't work. With Divx I had this also but not as often as with Xvid, but I will try it...
edit: at the same link there is now a xvid/mp3 compressed version ;)
thanks for the comments |
Post by Alien // Jun 12, 2006, 3:55am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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I meant the recording was done in uncompressed avi (approx 2 gigs=3000 frames for 2 minutes)
Yeah, I guessed that much. :)
- yes I used the same codec again, wasn't aware that the codec needs so much power :o
My turn to feel embarrassed - it's still jerky in Xvid [looks nice quality wise though], so presumably has something to do with the way you're capturing it or whatever, sorry to put you through the extra hassle. :o
BTW - H.264 does take a lot of horsepower, but I guess you must have used the lowest res/quality/whatever for it to come out almost the same as the Xvid version in terms of framerate/jerkiness/whatever, I was assuming you had set the quality settings higher.
With Xvid I'm not so happy because it extremly grumpy sometimes. At unusual framesizes the encoder often didn't work. With Divx I had this also but not as often as with Xvid, but I will try it...
Yeah, I've tried converting stuff to both Xvid & DivX in the past, DivX is easier, but Xvid is capable of getting better looking results, from what I've seen [of other people's encodings, not mine :(]. |
Post by parva // Jun 19, 2006, 1:30am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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My turn to feel embarrassed - it's still jerky in Xvid [looks nice quality wise though],
so presumably has something to do with the way you're capturing it or whatever, sorry to put you through the extra hassle. :o
no problem. Indeed the camera movement has no smoothen function but anyway the test was worth a try.
Finally a day and night combo. I rendered it to HDR in Player
- a great format, manually adjustment of lighting afterwards :)
- and added a flame with distortion effect to the night picture (currently no way to add those effects in Player ;) )...
http://www.parva-project.de/stuff/ts/hh.jpg |
Post by Alien // Jun 19, 2006, 2:00am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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no problem. Indeed the camera movement has no smoothen function but anyway the test was worth a try.
I don't know how you're moving the camera, but if it's following a path, couldn't you smoothen the spacing between points in Model with a plugin [I forget its name, but I know there is 1], then transfer it back to player?
Finally a day and night combo. I rendered it to HDR in Player
- a great format, manually adjustment of lighting afterwards :)
- and added a flame with distortion effect to the night picture (currently no way to add those effects in Player ;) )...
http://www.parva-project.de/stuff/ts/hh.jpg
The night 1 looks good, but the lighting on the day 1 is amazing, it looks so real. :cool: |
Post by noko // Jun 19, 2006, 5:35am
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noko
Total Posts: 684
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Awesome parva! The Player when rendering .hdr maintains high dynamic range of scene especially if using HDRI textures. I've even tried and was successful in using HDRI lights (image lights with small hdr images) and the dynamic range of rendered Player images reflected the dynamic range of HDRI used in image lights. This aspect exceeds the general photographic standard :). |
Post by parva // Jun 19, 2006, 10:02pm
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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I don't know how you're moving the camera, but if it's following a path, couldn't you smoothen the spacing between points in Model with a plugin [I forget its name, but I know there is 1], then transfer it back to player?
I moved the camera by hand, but yes something like you described should be possible but I wait until the new animation toolset is integrated.
The night 1 looks good, but the lighting on the day 1 is amazing, it looks so real. :cool:
Thanks. One great thing I still want to do with this scene and that is a day-night cycle (similar like in the 3DMark "Outpost Antarctica" demo"). The good thing is that no precalculated or baked shadows are in there so that different lighting situation are possible.
The Player when rendering .hdr maintains high dynamic range of scene especially if using HDRI textures. I've even tried and was successful in using HDRI lights (image lights with small hdr images) and the dynamic range of rendered Player images reflected the dynamic range of HDRI used in image lights. This aspect exceeds the general photographic standard
Totally agree. I used a halfsphere with applied hdr texture and this is tweakable in hdri output too. The same for all lights.
The output of the hdr image isn't what I see in Player but I guess this has something to do with the gamma or alike - if I reduced that I got nearly the same result like visible in Player. |
Post by Délé // Jun 21, 2006, 5:06pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Day and Night shots look awesome parva! :) |
Post by MadMouse // Jun 21, 2006, 10:09pm
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MadMouse
Total Posts: 1069
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Outstanding Marcel, truly outstanding!!:D |
Post by Shike // Jun 25, 2006, 6:31am
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Shike
Total Posts: 511
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This is unbelivable ! :jumpy:
For a long time I've been irritated about how games (like HalfLife2, FarCry, Fear, Oblivion and more) look so good in realtime and we have to use a slow render engine....really cool that we also have realtime capabilities now :cool:
Kinda makes me wonder about the future. With the fast evolution of graphic-cards, the creators of Lightworks, Vray, Maxwell and so on should perhaps worry. In a couple of years we might only need the latest GFX card to render everything we want in tS...in realtime ! :D |
Post by TomG // Jun 26, 2006, 4:56am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Hi all,
I always thought that this backyard scene looked VERY like something out of Half-Life 2, and am always expecting a head crab to leap from the dumpster, or combine soldiers to creep round the corner!
Anyway, most exciting to me is this is the same real-time renderer that is in truePlay, our free application. This means you can expect your clients, customers and friends to be able to view your scenes in realtime with this sort of quality, even if they are not trueSpace owners (even if they don't own any 3D software, or even any games - they won't need anything except the free truePlay app).
I think real-time presentation of work has become very valid, and scenes like these show that very well. Now, the texture files may be large here, so across the internet could mean you would need to wait for the assets (the textures) to download first, or you could simply send the file zipped or on CD. All the same, I think it presents whole new ways of showing your work. Heck, even just to save the real-time render and save on having to use one of the offline renderers to draw it for you, is pretty cool :)
I hope to still see more of this scene, I can't get enough of it :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by Alien // Jun 26, 2006, 5:34am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Is it ok to give out copies of tP, as it's free anyway, or does anyone who wants to use it have to register & download direct from Caligari? |
Post by splinters // Jun 26, 2006, 5:43am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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On the one hand I believe you have to register to get it, but on the other hand, you may need to distribute it with your scenes on a CD. Wouldn't be too hard to get an autorun that installed TP then automatically ran your project...would it?
Either way, only Team Caligari can confirm this; I am just speculating...:confused: |
Post by parva // Jun 26, 2006, 6:35am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Is it ok to give out copies of tP, as it's free anyway, or does anyone who wants to use it have to register & download direct from Caligari?
Like Splinters I can just guess but I think it would be no problem to share tP freely. The registration would be a good way to inform the user - here there is a new version or alike...
Thanks Tom! Indeed it looks a bit like Half Life 2. Maybe it's the fact that like this game the whole atmosphere comes from the Textures (and a bit lighting as well).
Half Life 2 didn't use many polygons (one of the reasons why it runs very well, even at older machines) but looks still impressive and also this Scene is very fast and ready for other features like realtime physics etc.
@Shike - agree with you but guess that we will wait some years to get real lighting conditions in realtime. Nevermind I'm much more interested in the way that Games become more realistic actors (Alyx Vance from HL2 is a great implementation where I had sometimes the feeling in Episode One that there is somehow a "real person" next to me). I hope that things like that become more attention and of course better emotional stories. Here we stand still at the beginning. |
Post by TomG // Jun 26, 2006, 8:41am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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tP is indeed free to everyone - include it for download from your site, put it on CD, email a copy to your friends and customers.
Registration works in this way - if you don't register, you can't access Shared Space, as you need to create a userid to sign in, which means you need to register. Without registration, you can still open up saved scenes that someone sends to you, etc.
So distribute away! :) I would include a link to register when you send it, and a link to the tP info pages, so that people can look it up and register if they choose, but you can point out that for viewing a saved scene that you send them, there is no need to register, so they can quickly and easily get in there and start viewing what you send them :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by splinters // Jun 26, 2006, 8:45am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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That is great Tom, know who knows how to get TP to self-install and run a default project. A menu system to navigate through projects would be good too-mabe HTML based as everyone as a browser on their PC. I can do icons and graphics to make this looks good and professional-like a TS product-anyone want to try this? |
Post by TomG // Jun 26, 2006, 9:31am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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No need for anyone to tackle it, there are already plans afoot so that tP doesn't open with an empty scene when you run it on its own. I know some people find that a little disconcerting, so we'll be getting that changed.
What happens is there is a lot of info out there, in the emails, on the web pages, etc - however of course most people are like me, and just run the program without reading one word of instructions or manual, ahem. And that is where things can seem more confusing than they need to.
Meantime, to send a scene to a client, just do this:
1. Send the client the scene, and the tP install, with whatever background info on tP you think is relevant for them (ie include the links to register if you think you will want to meet them online sometime, the web pages if you think they will be interested in knowing more about tP, etc). You can link them to the tP download from our site if you want to save on your bandwidth or email attachments.
2. Tell them to install tP, and once installed, to double click the scene you sent them. tP will automatically run, and load up the scene you sent.
It's as simple as that :)
Thanks!
Tom |
Post by Alien // Jun 26, 2006, 9:32am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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TomG: Thanks for the clarification & info.
Splinters: Sounds like you'd need some way of detecting whether tP is installed on the system & prompting the user to install it if it isn't. Maybe you could see if there's some sort of prog for making a CD of the type you describe. I'm pretty sure I've seen stuff like that [the progs to actually create them I mean] on magazine cover discs in the past, though I don't recall anything about them. |
Post by splinters // Jun 27, 2006, 1:36pm
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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I think what I really had in mind was a self running version of TP that did not require installation (ideal world, I know ;) ) so the CD ran like a flash presentation but could be manipulated within a TP like environment.
Failing that an 'idiot-proof' CD that installed TP much like Quicktime used to, and then took you to a list of projects to view-much like a DVD menu.
Still, if changes are afoot at Caligari.........:rolleyes: |
Post by hemulin // Jun 28, 2006, 9:08am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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A simple way would be to have your autorun.inf telling a batch file to run. Then that batch file, first detects whether truePlay is installed, either by searching for a specific file that only truePlay installs, or (i'm not sure if you can do this from a batch file) searching the registry for a truePlay string. After working out whether truePlay is installed the batch file would then run the tP installer (or not), after doing so it would open the scene file, all automatically, i'm pretty sure all of this can be done from a simple batch file. |
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