Creating a flag blowing in the wind

[WilliamVaughan]

Creating a flag blowing in the wind :
Click Here to view (ftp://ftp.newtek.com/multimedia/movies/w3dw/FlagWind.mov)

[Nangleator]

Well, this is fascinating. I've struggled to get a nice flag animation for quite a while. I've had to resort to "cheats" like beating my flag up with collision balls and moving my whole set around so at least inertia would be on my side.

I didn't realize you had to set the wind up around a thousand percent. A thousand percent to get "silk" to move? That seems broken.

[WilliamVaughan]

Well, this is fascinating. I've struggled to get a nice flag animation for quite a while. I've had to resort to "cheats" like beating my flag up with collision balls and moving my whole set around so at least inertia would be on my side.

I didn't realize you had to set the wind up around a thousand percent. A thousand percent to get "silk" to move? That seems broken.


Not true...it all depends with scale. the values has to do with the size of the object.

[Nangleator]

Hmm. I generally try to build to real world scales, and I've had a tough time trying to get the kind of motion I used to get with the displacement method.

The various wind emitters have texture and envelope buttons, but I haven't seen lots of impact from these. Perhaps I should go to extreme values first.

Thanks for the response and the video!

[WilliamVaughan]

I always type in extreme values to see what is going on....I'm a visual person so I dont think numbers too much :)

[THREEL]

I have a flag blowing animation that I did a couple of years ago that I would like to share, but the file is over 45 Megs. Is there anyway to crunch this down, so I can get it within the limits to upload?

W x H 720 x 486
Duration: 20 Sec.
Frame Rate: 30 fps
Sample Size: 24 bits
Video Compression: Cinepak Codec

I haven't seen Williams vid on this, yet. I do remember anchoring the flags to the poles and setting the poles to fixed. I'm trying to remember the rest. I plan on downloading this tute to refresh my memory.

tHANX!

AL

[Nangleator]

The best luck I've had with sharing videos is the WMV format. Crushes down good. Not great for animations with lots of details. Particle animations, in particular, fall apart. But it should work great for a flag animation.

Save to an uncompressed AVI. Drag that AVI into Windows Movie Maker, which comes with XP. Save out. (There are no settings. Also, you're constrained to 4:3, although you can do different sizes.) Astonishing compression, sometimes.

[jin choung]

just a sidenote but is it necessary for these videos to be so flippin' large?! in terms of filesize i mean.

i don't know about anybody else but i've completely disqualified the idea of checking any of them out because of the ludicrous wait times and i'm on a pretty fast dsl.

again, i can't speak for everybody but instructional videos don't really need anything close to pristine quality and 8.1 surround sound.....

check out the vids at pixologic's tuts site... small, fast and perfectly instructional.

jin

[IMI]

just a sidenote but is it necessary for these videos to be so flippin' large?! in terms of filesize i mean.

i don't know about anybody else but i've completely disqualified the idea of checking any of them out because of the ludicrous wait times and i'm on a pretty fast dsl.

again, i can't speak for everybody but instructional videos don't really need anything close to pristine quality and 8.1 surround sound.....

check out the vids at pixologic's tuts site... small, fast and perfectly instructional.

jin

Jin, knock it the hell off.
The videos aren't too large. If they are for you, maybe ditch the DSL and go cable. They take, for me, maybe ten seconds to download, if that.

That's the part about that. The next part might not be so nice.

This guy spends all this time putting these videos out - completely free, and we're all grateful for his efforts. Many of us are learning alot.
You however - someone who I have never seen do anything but complain and moan, someone who has never given a tip beyond "Switch to Maya!" seek to now invade this with your foul presence and, of all things, complain about download speed.
Do you care, even? I suspect you don't. Slow day on the rest of the board - couldn't find anything else to whine about?
You were *really* interested in checking out this flag video? I doubt it, really. Considering all the time you spend pointing out LW's flaws, and demonstrating how maya is so much more capable, I very much doubt you had any interest in the video beyond finding a way to poke holes through it.
Jeez, don't be such an ***** all the time.
Allow those of us who appreciate William's efforts to enjoy it.

"small, fast, and perfectly instructional" are the videos from pixologic, eh?
Maybe they are - I don't know, but these are too. particularly where 'perfectly instructional" is concerned (whatever that means - as opposed to flawed instructional, perhaps?)

Which brings up the question- why bother? Go on...shoo! head off to pixologic and enjoy this perfectly instructional thing, with no annoying and debilitating ten second time delay.
F-off and let the rest of us enjoy these without your ever-negative presence.

Or, stay, and quietly appreciate them.

-OR- don't appreciate them, but be enough of a friggin adult to show some respect.

[jin choung]

tsk tsk.

f off or you're gonna make me mad.

jin

p.s. goodness of his heart aside - errr, the guy is a newtek employee. so... yeah.

[jin choung]

and just so the rabid and frothy ranting of imi makes something mean something that i did not intend -

i don't mean to say that pixologic's videos are perfectly instructional while newtek's is not.

i mean to say that the videos are much smaller and while not pristine video quality, are "perfectly instructional" regardless of the lesser quality.

jin

[IMI]

and just so the rabid and frothy ranting of imi makes something mean something that i did not intend -


If it seems like it means that which this frothy and ranting one perceived it as, maybe it's because it does seem to be saying that which is now denied.
Let's analyze:
"check out the vids at pixologic's tuts site... small, fast and perfectly instructional."

That was its own sentence, in its own line. Not apparently attached to any other thought, even stretching English literary techniques.
Nope, it says basically, "these are not as good as what pixologic offers".
If you meant something different, perhaps you should have used different words to describe that thought.

Nevertheless, I got angry, and I apologize for being so... frothy. I would have preferred a more controlled, more subtle reply.

Newtek employee or not, what does it matter, jin?
You figure you have free reign to insult the newtek guy without hearing about it from those of us who might happen to like him and appreciate what he's been doing? Just because he's The Enemy, in your eyes?

C'mon dude, you know how to animate a flippin' flag. Even I do, and I'm not an animator. You didn't want to see the video, you just saw it as an opportunity to complain.

Oh well, whatever. I've said my thing. Normally I like you, but this is kinda disappointing. I'd have figured you were above petty complaining about things you're not really concerned about.

[Surrealist.]

Good video. I like this one. Nice effect using the collision object.

[jin choung]

WHAT IS THE CONTEXT? the context of my statement is IN THE MIDDLE OF A POINT ABOUT FILE SIZE AND QUALITY. it is BRACKETED in statements about filesize.

and WHAT INSULT?!?!

i am saying that the file sizes are too big for their purpose. HOW IS THAT AN INSULT?

and WHAT ENEMY?! are you fing cracking up? why are you CREATING conflicts in your head? isn't there enough GENUINE conflict without you going off to lalaland and making stuff up?

and there have been videos that i've wanted to check out and the file size or newtek's server or whatever left me hanging for >5 minutes. both at home and at work. and in this age of youtube and flash video, that's just inexcusable.

if you aren't having a problem with file sizes, say so and move on. what the f is this tirade about?

jin

[THREEL]

David,

tHANX for the tip on WMV. It worked great! The animation's a little grainy, but viewers should get the idea of the waving flags. I brought up the scene for the waving flags, and all could find were Motion Designer files that I had already calculated. I'll look some more and see if I can figure it out.

tHANX again!

tHREEL, but you can call me AL.

[IMI]

if you aren't having a problem with file sizes, say so and move on. what the f is this tirade about?

I'm not having a problem with file sizes. Well, that's not entirely true - I wish they were bigger, and the videos longer, considering the man packs more info/sec than anyone else I've ever seen.

It's not my tirade, Jin, it's yours. Probably I overreacted, but people tend to defend others they respect.

If you come barging into one of those situations with some complaint about file size, what do you expect? Really. It's not like we're in the 56K days here.
To me it seemed a complaint for its own sake, not a valid concern in these days.
How long does this 25 meg file take for you, anyway?

Regardless of all the above, I did in fact lose my cool, and again I apologize for that. Doesn't meat I don't think it, just was too quick to type it.

[jin choung]

I'm not having a problem with file sizes. Well, that's not entirely true - I wish they were bigger, and the videos longer, considering the man packs more info/sec than anyone else I've ever seen.

It's not my tirade, Jin, it's yours. Probably I overreacted, but people tend to defend others they respect.

If you come barging into one of those situations with some complaint about file size, what do you expect? Really. It's not like we're in the 56K days here.
To me it seemed a complaint for its own sake, not a valid concern in these days.
How long does this 25 meg file take for you, anyway?

Regardless of all the above, I did in fact lose my cool, and again I apologize for that. Doesn't meat I don't think it, just was too quick to type it.

ugh, go ^&@$#% off newtek as much as you like. just don't slobber in public.

and what a ludicrously limited apology.... lol.

btw, i honestly couldn't care less what you think.

jin

[IMI]

and what a ludicrously limited apology.... lol.

btw, i honestly couldn't care less what you think.


That was a "technical apology". Yes, it carried a disclaimer. Shall I apologize for that, as well? I suspect you prefer truth, considering your other posts on this site.

Ok, so you don't care what I think. I sort of doubt that, considering you're taking the time to respond, but that's cool.

This is the part where I'm supposed to say I don't care what you think either, but I'm not going to do that.

I do have to applaud you though, for your skill at turning this around and making me look like the crazy one here. It is an impressive skill. Not so sure how useful it is, but hey, a skill is a skill.

[jin choung]

lol... you're the one who was saying you were thinking it though you shouldn't have typed it.

i sincerely do not care what you think. if you don't open your pie hole (or let your ridiculous fingers fly), then i have nothing to say to you.

i'm turning this on you because you're the dope who created drama where there was none because someone dared to say something remotely critical of your boyfriend.

don't start cryin'. haven't you been enough of a b@#$?

jin

[Surrealist.]

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NTComm is offline Report Bad Post


A reminder to keep it civil guys. Not to mention on topic.

Personally I would like to see this thread get back on topic for those who came here for tips and tricks.

[Wolvy_UK]

I' ve got to agree with Surrealist.

I came to this post to see 2 pages of posts on maybe different techniques and tips on making a flag move, but instead found 1 and a half pages of arguing.

Just in case this squabble influences William' s way he makes his videos, I' d just like to say I like the format they are in now. The majority of them are 10 MB or less, and the average is 20 MB, with a few above 30Mb. If I get 3 downloading at a time, they will take maybe 10 minutes each to download on a 2MB ADSL. The servers are going to be busy because so many people are downloading them.

Concerning the quality, I like the sharpness to them. I don' t want to see blurry text like it was recorded from a 10 year old VHS tape. I could never go back to watching video tapes now that I' m used to DVD quality, so I don' t see why tutorials have to be blurry and low res too.

It all comes down to what knowledge they contain is worth to you. If it' s something I don' t know, I' ll wait as long as it takes. I always appreciate knowledgeable people helping others ( Especially for free ), and I' ll gladly take whatever tips they want to share. And that' s not me sucking up to someone, there' s a difference between appreciating what someone does and idolizing someone.

Yes William is a part of Newtek, but he' s not in Newtek offices making these videos all day. He has other jobs to do, and I' m pretty sure he makes these in his spare time when he gets a chance.

So keep the videos coming and more discussion of what the videos are actually about please.

[IMI]

i'm turning this on you because you're the dope who created drama where there was none because someone dared to say something remotely critical of your boyfriend.

don't start cryin'. haven't you been enough of a b@#$?


What kind of an idiot thing is that to say?
No "boyfriend". Not into that, you know. You really do sound like a spoiled little kid some times. I haven't heard anything like that since grade school.
Other people have said critical things, but they manage to do it tactfully. Yes, I understand, that's not your way.
No crying.
What gets me, is you really don't see it. You really believe there was nothing wrong with your post. As far as you're concerned, it was a perfectly legitimate response, delivered in a perfectly polite way.
I bet you actually wonder why you get these types of reactions all over this board, too.


Sorry, Surrealist, and everyone else who had to read this. I couldn't let that stand.

[WilliamVaughan]

I'm sending someone over from NewTek to clean this mess up....

but until then, just to set the record straight...

The videos will continue to be 800x600 and at the quality level that they are. The file size is quite small considering the size/quality/length. We live in a day where this file size is not out of the norm and it takes no time at all to download. I'd compare it to the download of a movie trailer except you learn something from it.

These videos are not a required download...if they are too large for you to download then skip em....there are plenty of written tutorials to keep you educated with LW.

Enjoy the videos......or dont......I know the majority of the community will :)

[NTComm]

IMI and others, the best approach is to simply report posts when you find them offensive. Attempting to debate someone who clearly has no perspective on their own behavior is pointless.

Jin, you have two weeks off to try to gain some perspective on your forum behavior. You greet every disagreement with ad hominem personal attack rather than sticking to debating the ideas, and if anyone critiques your behavior, as happened here, you respond well out of proportion not merely with critique but with overwhelming insult.

[IMI]

Will do. You bet I won't be acting like again this anytime soon. I'll try my best not to, at least. I should have just ignored it, but what's done is done.
I didn't want to see the guy get a timeout, though. I'm not exactly blameless in this. I'm also guilty of a certain amount of childishness.
I don't know what I'm saying - just apologizing again to everyone who had to see all this.

[RonGC]

William great to see you stand by your product, i love the crisp detail of the videos and not having to get eye strain viewing a heavily compressed video.
Keep doing them exactly as you are, quality counts.

If it takes longer to download thats fine, as i get to save them to my hard drive and review them anytime i want.

After all if your going to be placing these in the NT video tutorials site then you need to output a professional product, not some blurry, quasi-viewable mess.

These videos qualify as a pro product!

Thank you and keep the quality high.

Ron

[THREEL]

These videos are not a required download...if they are too large for you to download then skip em....there are plenty of written tutorials to keep you educated with LW.

Yes they are, or they should be IMHO. I can read very well, but I'm not honestly much of a reader. I'm by far-and-away a visual learner, and William's tutorials are just the ticket for me to figure out how things work here. Nothing against how the manuals are written or laid out, but sometimes I have a problem following the manual to figure how a particular function is completed in :lwicon:.

BTW--I don't even have high speed Internet, and I still download these tutes, because they help me to become a better modeler/animator. Many times I'll download them while I'm asleep, so they won't affect my work in the daytime.

Also, I was wondering what people thought of the flag animation I posted in this thread. With the recent rash of trash talk, maybe viewers might have forgotten about it. I know it could have went in the WIP section, but William's video on this subject made me bring it out of moth balls. It's not the best quality of animation, but I wanted to show the waving motion to get opinions on that. Still trying to remember the exact procedure I used, and will update when I figure it out.

tHANX!!!

tHREEL, but you can call me AL.

[Nangleator]

The animation is how my flag animations come out. Good enough, as long as you don't have to look at it too long. There's this periodic puffing that goes on, and it's so difficult to get some texture in the wind. Sure, there's T buttons on some of the wind controls, but for the life of me, I can't get a directional wind to do anything but blow steadily, or not at all.

[cagey5]

I just set up a second wind at right angles to the main one and envelope some strong gusts to disrupt.

[colkai]

YI don't even have high speed Internet, and I still download these tutes, because they help me to become a better modeler/animator.

Agreed, I am only on DSL, but though the downloads take "a while", that HAS to be put in conext, after all, t'weren't too long ago I was on 56K :p

I love the size and the clarity of the videos and if it takes me 30 mins to get one, no biggie, worth every second of the wait.

Thanks again Will for all your hard work - my only problem is finding the time to watch them before you crank a new one out. ;) :D :D

(edited because I missed the quote :p)

[IMI]

Also, I was wondering what people thought of the flag animation I posted in this thread. With the recent rash of trash talk, maybe viewers might have forgotten about it. I know it could have went in the WIP section, but William's video on this subject made me bring it out of moth balls. It's not the best quality of animation, but I wanted to show the waving motion to get opinions on that. Still trying to remember the exact procedure I used, and will update when I figure it out.

tHANX!!!

tHREEL, but you can call me AL.


Al,
I hadn't noticed the animation you posted. You can probably figure why. ;)
But I think it looks really good, actually, much better than anything I've ever done.
I learned how to animate a flag from Dan Ablan's LW v9 Courseware, but never worked at it much beyond the basic method.
I'm looking forward to trying this, when I have time.
But again, your animation is really good - especially on the American flag.

[serge]

The animation is how my flag animations come out. Good enough, as long as you don't have to look at it too long. There's this periodic puffing that goes on, and it's so difficult to get some texture in the wind. Sure, there's T buttons on some of the wind controls, but for the life of me, I can't get a directional wind to do anything but blow steadily, or not at all.
Like Cagey5 said, you need the E button (envelope) next to the power chanel and create some strong gusts. And as William mentions in his tutorial you should try powers like 10.000%. Also, it might help if your flag object is light (like 0.1 or something, depends on the size of the object). And be sure there's enough geometry for the creation of wrinkles.

[cagey5]

I've made a short video tutorial building in what I learnt from Williams tutorial. It shows the effects of improved billowing by use of weight maps and side winds, together with reducing the overall 'stretchiness' of a flag.

Hope someone finds it useful.


http://www.mediafire.com/?0tl3ymmmmmz


btw. I recorded the vid using CamStudio which only saves as AVI which I can't upload. Is there an easy way to convert to .mov format keeping to a reasonable size. I tried using Speededit but that gave me a 1,9Gig file from a 26meg AVI, which wasn't exactly helpful.

Plus what is the upload limit for .mov files? Anybody know?

[WilliamVaughan]

Camtasia lets you produce a video in just about any format....that is how I mahe my QT movies for the videos I've been uploading

[cagey5]

Thanks William, but as I don't see myself doing this on anything like a regular basis, I'd be looking for the cheapest possible option. I know they have given away free copies of earler versions before now, so I guess I'll have to wait and see if they run a similar promotion sometime.

[serge]

...Plus what is the upload limit for .mov files? Anybody know?
Last time I tried I couldn't upload anything above 2MB.

[cagey5]

Hmmm. That wouldn't be a solution either then.

[WilliamVaughan]

PM Chuck Baker and see if he can get you a spot on the NewTek FTP site...then we can move it to a permanent location....no promises but it might be a solution

[cagey5]

Well as a one off the above link should suffice. I just wondered if there was a trick I was missing if I ever did another, but thanks for the suggestion. :thumbsup:

[RonGC]

Thanks William, but as I don't see myself doing this on anything like a regular basis, I'd be looking for the cheapest possible option. I know they have given away free copies of earler versions before now, so I guess I'll have to wait and see if they run a similar promotion sometime.

Grab a Free copy now i just downloaded a free older version of Camtasia from their site yesterday, get em while their hot:D

a bonus of QT mov format is everyone can view the file, some of the avi encodings are not viewable for Mac users and even quite a few of MS users have to go on a hunt for some esoteric codec.

This video Test2.avi you supplied gives me sound only and i tried playing it in VLC, QT, Xvid, etc on my Mac.:stumped:

Ron

[Surrealist.]

You can use any NLE to convert to a QT file with good compression settings for quality and size.

[cagey5]

Grab a Free copy now i just downloaded a free older version of Camtasia from their site yesterday, get em while their hot:D

a bonus of QT mov format is everyone can view the file, some of the avi encodings are not viewable for Mac users and even quite a few of MS users have to go on a hunt for some esoteric codec.

This video Test2.avi you supplied gives me sound only and i tried playing it in VLC, QT, Xvid, etc on my Mac.:stumped:

Ron


You wouldn't have a link would you? I heard the last giveaway finished on Jan 7th and the link I found for that had been removed. I can't find any reference to an older version on their site but I was maybe unlucky with my timing.

Re. sound only. Arrgh, I hate it when that happens. I'm not sure what codec was used but I have 2 PC's here and they both run it ok, which I know is of no help to you. If I can get it converted to .mov I will.

Cheers

[cagey5]

You can use any NLE to convert to a QT file with good compression settings for quality and size.


Such as?

[Surrealist.]

Take a look at this list (http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/), scroll down and find the cheapest one that outputs to Quicktime. Or you may have something similar already. So I should have said "most any" :) There are probably some pretty cheep encoders out there too I would guess. I also have Batch Converter which may not be available anymore as a stand alone.

[RonGC]

You wouldn't have a link would you? I heard the last giveaway finished on Jan 7th and the link I found for that had been removed. I can't find any reference to an older version on their site but I was maybe unlucky with my timing.

Re. sound only. Arrgh, I hate it when that happens. I'm not sure what codec was used but I have 2 PC's here and they both run it ok, which I know is of no help to you. If I can get it converted to .mov I will.

Cheers
OOPs just checked their site and see that the giveaway is over, i must have just squeeked in to get Camtasia.

Sorry about that.

Ron

[G M D THREE]

The best luck I've had with sharing videos is the WMV format. Crushes down good. Not great for animations with lots of details. Particle animations, in particular, fall apart. But it should work great for a flag animation.

Save to an uncompressed AVI. Drag that AVI into Windows Movie Maker, which comes with XP. Save out. (There are no settings. Also, you're constrained to 4:3, although you can do different sizes.) Astonishing compression, sometimes.

WMV (Windex Muddy Video) is not worth much if part of your audience is on the mac. Quicktime has H264, that is a kick a s s compression but agin some of us run a dell and didn't get the memo. :hey:

///

[Lightwolf]

OOPs just checked their site and see that the giveaway is over, i must have just squeeked in to get Camtasia.

Sorry about that.

You can use VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org) on a PC as well for screen captures.

Cheers,
Mike

[virtualcomposer]

I'm sending someone over from NewTek to clean this mess up....

but until then, just to set the record straight...

The videos will continue to be 800x600 and at the quality level that they are. The file size is quite small considering the size/quality/length. We live in a day where this file size is not out of the norm and it takes no time at all to download. I'd compare it to the download of a movie trailer except you learn something from it.

These videos are not a required download...if they are too large for you to download then skip em....there are plenty of written tutorials to keep you educated with LW.

Enjoy the videos......or dont......I know the majority of the community will :)


I think these videos are the best tutorials I've seen and I learn, not only about making flags and others, but I am learning principles that go beyond the tutorials. I think it's awesome that William Vaughan, who probably makes these tutorials on his own time, makes such understandable tutorials. Allot of the tutorials you see on the web are usually dated or extremely hard to understand where the person is going and many times they are not very professional. So...thank you William and keep those videos coming!! By the way, I have DSL and the downloads, at most, takes about 25 minutes. The longer I have to wait for them, the more I want to watch them. LOL

[cagey5]

On the contrary they were produced on Newteks' behalf.

http://www.newtek.com/forums/showpost.php?p=645048&postcount=314

[virtualcomposer]

well, what ever the case, I really appreciate them.

[cagey5]

Yep. William is a rare breed. Insightful tutorials, ever helpful and I've never known him have a bad word to say about anyone... and he likes a beer too. Here's to the next round.... of tutorials that is.

[csquared63]

Great tutorial, as are all of your FREE tutorials, William. Thank you.

-Carl