Comments on: Commercial Video: Ski Grinding

By: tvrogersjr

tvrogersjr — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:33:25 +0000

A fine video. It's good to see a good "mechanical" use for Blender.
Although Blender is, of course, wonderful for artistic 3d rendering of static scenes and any sort of animation, it is also an excellent tool for more technical uses.
Good job.

By: elite2864

elite2864 — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:40:40 +0000

@konrad_ha:
I sign to be as "a very starting hobbyist".
Sometimes I think you people create scenes, renderings and clips without using basic techniques.
This techniques can be found in basic-tutorials (not for Blender but other tools)!
I never will compare me with other more professional artists, because I am still a beginner (as I wrote).
Blender has many professional features. But the fewest Blender-users use it.
The most renderings and clips are therefore not as good as they should be.
Thats the shame.

By: konrad_ha

konrad_ha — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:39:25 +0000

@elite2864: I took the liberty and searched for your work via google. After some hops I found your homepage and I must say: if you are who I think you are (B.G., right?) I can take this comment with extreme relaxation. Should I be mistaken feel free to point me to your real portfolio, it'd better justify this harsh critique.

By: elite2864

elite2864 — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:06:14 +0000

Sorry guys,
that's cruel!
The materials, the light-setup and the commercial message in the spot is beginner level!
SORRY!

By: Keith M.

Keith M. — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:37:01 +0000

Yeah, I know that there is a gap there in many blender tutorial sites. I've only found one tutorial dealing with sparks, and the renders weren't as good as yours. I haven't used nodes, I have done mostly modelling, and animation. I really should learn how though.

By: Höhrer

Höhrer — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:03:43 +0000

Very good job on that video, clear and informative. :)

@konrad_ha: Don't be surprised, people love shiny things (myself included), no matter what :D

Werner

By: konrad_ha

konrad_ha — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:48:33 +0000

@keith: The particles in the improved version were exactly the same as in the original version. The main differences were a) 16x 3D motion blur (which helps a lot) and b) some very subtle blooming in postprocessing (using render-nodes). Real 3D motion blur yields incredibly beautiful results, but it has slight drawback: every frame is rendered 16 times!!! I wasn't under pressure for the high-end version, but all in all it took the almost a month on two Quad-Core Mac-Pros to render the whole thing in this quality.

I'm really surprised how much everyone loves the sparks. I'm considering making a short tutorial about their creation tomorrow evening (if I still have the energy after a hard day's work).

By: Keith M.

Keith M. — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:26:58 +0000

I saw the before and after pics, they look really good! I am into CG with blender and my buddy has Adobe After Effects and really really good Canon Camera, we are planning on doing a 'star wars' like movie in the future, and we really need sparks! Did you use motion blur for the improved version? And were the particles still vectors?

By: konrad_ha

konrad_ha — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:18:26 +0000

@BlendRoid: thanks alot, fixed.

@Dion Moult: The good-looking sparks are actually very simple particle systems that pretty much anyone with rudimentary blender-particle knowledge could set up. The nice look is achieved by rendering everything with real 3D-motion blur which resulted in terrifying(!!!) render-times.

@mookie: thanks.

By: BlendRoid

BlendRoid — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:53:22 +0000

That was pretty cool. I love sparks; they're so awesome. By the way, that should be "arose," not "arised."