Frozen Animation

[vncnt]

New build of Legato 2020 (4-MAR-2020).

X-Sheets in CSV format can now be imported back into Legato, for example after modifications in a spreadsheet.
With or without Offset.

With the "Import TextTrack.txt" button, you're able to import audio transcriptions of lyrics into Legato.
Currently limited to text track #7: the Speech track.
A single Line per frame, a single Word per frame, a single Syllable per frame (work-in-progress), or a single Character per frame.
After import you can select a frame range and move or retime the text tracks.

Download here: http://home.kpn.nl/vincentmesman/legato.html#download

Three videos on Vimeo:

Introduction
https://vimeo.com/393178345

Backplate Switching
https://vimeo.com/395552281

X-Sheet Export / Import
https://vimeo.com/395552534

[lwanmtr]

And now for a small side line....

Decided Im going to print my models, starting with Elsa in her coronation dress.

Set up the pose in Lightwave and saved the transformed models. Did some tweaking in Modeler, then exported to Blender (to generate an obj in far less time than Modeler) to import into ZBrush so I can dynamesh and do other things to prep it as a printable model.



For the hair, I used FFX to convert to polys, then used Zbrush to make it all into a single object.
Details on the clothing I used displacement maps in zbrush.
Should have the first prints going in a day or so...will try on both my Photon and RoboR1.

[JohnMarchant]

Thanks Vincent.

[lwanmtr]

Just an update..fighting with printer..I'll post some gore shots tomorrow....lol.

Also will show a few preview shots of the Snow Queen dress soon....then it's time to stop putting it off and get to animating the sequence...

[lwanmtr]

Ran a test at 4k to get an idea if I will be able to render 4k or 1080p. I chose one of the longest sets to try and guage times.

I used 1 camera sample with .01 adaptive, 16 sample, reflection/refraction samples at 2 and subsurface at 3.
my goal was to see if I could achieve decent results with DeNoise and RSMB...overall I think it will work.
The 600 frame render took about 4 days.
After looking at the renders and the output from AE using denoise and rsmb, I decided to render the hair itself..
It took about 28 hours to render the hair suing 32 gi samples and 16 camera samples (they really need to update FFX).



You can see the video here.... https://youtu.be/5gt8ArJAyhs

Ive been doing a little dabbling Blender and hair renders there super quick..just havent figured out how to get materials to match LW, specially with the ice floors and walls and.....lol.

[erikals]

nice, note; a FiberFX trick to cut render time >

[lwanmtr]

Thanks.

I'll give that a shot. I hadnt even thought about glossy reflections on hair. Thanks.

[erikals]

my pleasure  

to further cut render time for animation, also see >

[lwanmtr]

Ahh yeah, I had checked that video out before too (its where I got the clue to set despike to .1).

[erikals]

Reflection/Refraction 2

note; be careful setting that lower than 4

also be careful setting AA lower than 3, or higher than 8.

[lwanmtr]

Which was why I ran the test render, to see how low I could go

[lardbros]

One of the best ways to speed up renders is to crank up your samples exactly where the noise is occurring, and raising the Adaptive sampling threshold to 0.05 or something. It tends to be the camera samples that spend waaay too long on an area trying really hard to clean up the noise.

I'm just not sure, with the old ffx which samples clean it up, whether it's refraction or reflection ones.

Good luck!

[erikals]

Adaptive sampling

i never got that good results with it unfortunately,

made a test just now,
Adaptive sampling 0.01 - 3min 1sec
Adaptive sampling 0.05 - 3min 2sec
Adaptive sampling 0.10 - 3min 1sec



edit; actually, i get a -slightly- better result with AS off...   
min5 - max10 - AS 0.01 - 3min 1sec
min15 - 3min 1sec

[lwanmtr]

Adaptive sampling used to put a big impact on rendering with lower numbers..I havent noticed much of a difference either in 2019.

[erikals]

btw, in Gi panel, you might wanna turn ISBG off actually. the despike will fix it instead.
shaves of ~10% rendertime

(seems to work at least, so far)