Hello to all, I have an animation problem. Can you help?

timlobet

Hello all, I brief intro. A long time Bryce user, since 5.0 I think. Recently picked it up again as I am getting into VR with Quest 2. I want to try some animation from bryce into MP4 from avi via Handbrake.

I am animating a chess game in Bryce but have hit a snag. On a particular move I need to animate the bishop to slide and take the queen and the queen to rise up out of sight while the camera pans slowly around.

When I set up the animation and run it in wireframe the bishop moves halfway and then stops. There are no keyframes at that point but always stops

The animation is set for 6 secs at 15 frames/sec.

I hae tried ctrl shift alt and the minus button to clear all keyframes on all objects and started again but it happens again.

If I stretch the blue keyframe point on the map to cover more than the distance then bishop will jump from first keyframe to a new point before beginning the animation and stopping again

I have tried with auto key on and off same result.

I seem to remember having this problem way back in the past but I cant remember what the solution was. I would be very grateful if there is anyone with any ideas what I am doing wrong here.

I can attach the file if it helps- about 7mbs

Thanks in advance

Tim

Horo

timlobet - sorry to hear about your issues with Bryce animation. However, as I read in your comment, you are light years ahead of me concerning animation and I cannot help. Let's hope some versed Bryce animator sees your post.

 

timlobet

Hi Horo, real pleasure to talk with you. I have recently bought the spherical mapper add on pack and have enjoyed trying out some new ideas. I have some questions you might be able to help me with regarding dealing with the zenith and nadir as well as picking you brain about render resolutions for VR. I am rendering at 4000x2000 with fine art settings and would like to know if this can be improved. I understand the render to disk is consiered a little buggy.

Would it be better to start a new thread or do people just chop and change in one thread?

So nice to find that there is still some Bryce fans to talk to.

BW

Horo

Thank you for giving the spherical mapper a try timlobet. Yes, render to disk can be a bit tricky sometimes, but not always. If you have a flat scene, you can set the camera to render one side and then move the camera to render the other side (e.g. set camera to FOV 75 at 100% = angle of view horizontal 60 degrees and then assemble the renders with a graphics program).
Another idea is to create a Plop mask over the render that fits on the screen and zoom the camera to one square, render and save the image, then move the camera to the next square and assemble the renders in a graphics program. I have not yet tried it to create huge images. But it is an idea, see on my website 3D CG Documents > Mine > Basics > Plop Rendering (it's a PDF and a link to a free Objects library with 7 plop masks ready to use).
If you look for panoramas bigger than 4000 pixels wide, you can render the 6 sides of a cube, each max. 4000 x 4000 pixels, see again under Basics > Huge Panoramas. For the Cube method (which I often use), set the document aspect ratio to 1:1, camera FOV to 112.5 at Scale 100, this gives you exactly 90 degrees horizontal and vertical. Set camera Y position to 0 (north), render, then to 90 (east), 180 (south), 270 (west), then back to 0 and X to -90 for the zenith and 90 for the nadir. You need a program to assemble the 6 cube faces to a spherical panorama (HDRShop, (not available anymore) or PTGui or Pano2VR (google them for a link), both are not free but neither overly expensive, Hugin may also work and is free).

 

S Ray

I've never encountered this problem. But Try this. At first frame set a keyframe on the Queen, then copy matrix (edit/copy matrix) Then advance the time line to last frame and move Queen to desired location & set a keyframe. Go to 2 frames before where you want the queen to start moving & paste matrix, then set a keyframe. advance to the next frame & paste matrix again & set a key frame ( this is called setting a sharp keyframe. Then  the queen should start it's movement at the next frame to the last frame's position.  In the animation lab you can adjust how fast the queen movement is at each frame. But I find it easier to just use the sharp keyframe method.

 

NGartplay

If no answers are found here try the Carrara forum.  A lot of past Brycers there too.

timlobet

Thanks to all, I have not heard of setting a sharp keyframe, I will play with that idea thanks.

Thanks Horo, that looks like a way to get larger renders, I have the spherical lens linked to the camera both at 0,0,0.

Will I still get the zenith and nadir whorling effect your way?

Will experiment this weekend thanks so much

bw

Horo

timlobet - I dont's see why you shouldn't get the effect at the poles. It's worth a try.

timlobet

Hi to both of you, sorry to take so long to get back to you, caught up with work at the minute.

@ S Ray, thanks, not quite sure what I was doing but it seemed to work much better after a few trial attempts to set up. I copied the matrix and it followed the path thanks. I cant find any other reference to that way to keyframe even going back as far as Robin Wood so thx for that.

@ Horo,  thank you I tried what you suggested. I worked well and then I tried Hugin initally but I think PTGui is better featured. The render is , of course quite large but I can reduce it well in Handbrake or Xmedia.

May I ask you thoughts on another project I have going? As you can see from the picture it is a recreation of Discovery approaching Jupiter. It is rendered at 4000x2000 in panoramic and is for the Quest 2 in Vr and so far it looks quite good. The stars background is a sphere 600 in diameter with 8k starfield mapped spherically with 100% diffusion, then a radial light 590 in diameter with intensity set up high 70% or so.

I want to continue with this butdo you think there is a better way get this effect? Even with an 8k image I am losing some fine cloud detail. Any thoughts you may have gratefully received.

Horo

timlobet - thanks for reporting back. Agreed, PTGui is more advanced than Hugin but not free. Your new panorama looks great. Perhaps try an HDRI without using it as backdrop to give additional omny-directional light for the clouds. You can do such in a minute or two. Remove all objects, also the ground plane, create a fully white sky, nothing else, sunlight disabled. Enable Use HDR Image and click on Use Sky (not Sky Dome only), the default size of 600 is good enough, then Export Image as HDR Image 96 Bits and Spherical.

WendyLuvsCatz

I use Microsoft ICE to make panoramas from photos and rotating videos so I guess that could work for renders too

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/

NGartplay

That looks like a cool program.