Animation Tests

LeslieSOsborne

Video Link: http://youtu.be/w117rYOlgcM

Hi Everyone!

Above is a link to a short video. It has a set of animation tests from a scene I am blocking out/animating. What are your thoughts on the following:

15;17 – 22;00 : The camera’s depth-of-field (DOF) looks more like a frosted glass than soft blur. This especially makes the lights appear unnatural. QUESTION; How do I achieve a more natural DOF blur?

51;29 – 1;02;13: There is pixilation on the characters neck and shoulder within the animation. QUESTION; How do I render without the pixilation?

1;02;29 – 1;04;22: DOF and focal length is set to very nicely compliment the figure in the background. However, the figure in the foreground’s DOF blur looks more like looking through a frosted glass than an actual focal lens blur. QUESTION; How do I create a more natural looking DOF blur?

LAST, while I’m near the subject - QUESTION; what are your preferred render settings when rendering video with an alpha channel? Have you had success with video alpha channels in Daz Studio 4.7+ or do you render image sequences to achieve a good alpha channel?

I’ve realized that I may have to do multiple renders to get the final effect I’m looking for. For example;

[] Render environment without character.
[] Render character without environment.
[] Combine both in post-production so Gaussian blur, etc., can be added to the final scene.

Thank you, in advance!

a-sennov

1. The DOF at 00:20 is over the top for this type of scene. You should increase the FStop for the camera. The DOF you used is more suites the scene where the main character is almost static relative to the camera and you want to concentrate the watcher's attention on it. In your scene mosquito is flying away from viewer so viewer instinctively want to know what is ahead and that's blurred, giving an unpleasant impression.

2. In general, to have better quality of DOF you have to increase the sampling in 3delight settings (there are separate rates for X and Y sampling, play with them to find the best ratio between render time and quality)

3. I'm unsure about the reason of pixelation on the neck. Do you use displacement map for clothing? If yes it might be the seam between different UV islands.

4. About DOF for closeup and distant figures - generally you cannot find the only setting that will suit all planes so you have to render multipass here and composite final frame later.

5. ALWAYS render image sequences. You'll have many opportunities to lose color info from your frames later so preserve it at max from the start :) Octane can render into 16bit .png so I'm doing just that. Standalone 3delight can render into .exr, but AFAIR this capability is locked in DS version so 8bit .png is your best option.

6. Yes, almost any final frame will be multilayered :) What and how you render depends mostly on what impression you want to deliver to viewer.

Steve K

losborne said:

...

51;29 – 1;02;13: There is pixilation on the characters neck and shoulder within the animation. QUESTION; How do I render without the pixilation?

You certainly avoided the "dead eyes" we often see in character animation. :red:

Looks good.

That distracted me from the pixelation, the first time through I though it was some signal on the suit. So maybe just tell people its not a bug but a feature ... :coolsmirk: