Lenscare and RSMB are essentials for 3D in AE. I'm still slogging away in CS6, so no Lumetri for me. That looks great though. I use Magic Bullet Looks for most of that similar stuff, and I've recently also gotten FilmConvert Pro, which very nicely emulates a lot of classic film stocks.
I'd love to know more about how you built a render farm like that. I used to just have 3 separate machines for rendering, but they're old and under-powered and dead now, so now it's a lot of overnight renders on my main machine instead.
I use MB Looks also. Lumetri can replace this plug only partially. I heard good things from FilmConvert, but I used to date the Grain Effect of MB Looks. Do you rate FC definitely better? My next 'must have'? :rolleyes:
What I forgot to mention is that I also work with LUTs in AE. They make the most pronounced cinematic change in the grading. In the example above I used the two-stage IMPULZ LUTs. If I remember correctly, Episode IV-VI were shot on Kodak 5218 or 5219 analog negative. So I used Rec709_Kodak VIS3 500T 5219 as input LUT and Cineon to Fuji FPE (D65) as film print output LUT. It took a while until I realized the correct usage in the AE pipeline.
The farm ist a complete own scratch build based on a Ikea Besta case. On the picture below you can see how I constructed the inner frame structure for the main boards.
The front and rear panels are CNCd acrylic glasses with integrated fans and service parts (Power- and Reset-knobs, USB, HDMI). When you have no remote network connection (e.g. in BIOS mode) it's important to have access to the board via keyboard/screen.
The concept used for air circulation is quiet convoluted and hence difficult to explain in detail. But the air in the closed case is completely renewed every 0.5 sec, which is absolutely essential with the used Devil Canyon K-Processors.
The motherboards are Standard Z97 ITX PC's and run via TonymacX64 Hack on OS X 10.10. The stability of this solution is truly amazing and it's also fast. The CPU coolers are Arctic Freezers, they are also very good and inexpensive.
But this thing is nonetheless kind of a crazy borderline project which I therefore only can recommend myself with 'good conscience'
And it's also not cheap (ca. 8k Euros). I had to sell some of my beautiful old music synthesizers and parts of my fathers model railway collection to finance it. But why keep things you no longer use anyway. This project ist my model railway
So, the lost time because of the the construction of the new render farm is already leveled thanks to its power. A third of the CGI sequences of the fan movie are already final. And fortunately, it is the heavy and difficult ones like Coruscant or Star Destroyer inside scenes.
Currently I am working on an indoor shot showing a person in a somewhat smoky situation
It is only a provisional grading on it.
And this is a quick composite I've made for a fellow member of the Prop Den Vader Forum. His Vader life-size figure is equipped with the finest and rarest movie props and fits not badly in the virtual setting, despite the non-coordinated lighting. (and yes, the long reflection on the floor IS WRONG )
There is still much work to do with the movie, but things continue to develop as I have foreseen :devil:
This time it's the steering console with screen display of Darth Vaders TIE Advanced X1.
References to the original are quiet rare. As usual I decided to mix known elements with own fictitious ones.
And that's a final frame of WIP in Post #155. It has a Motion Blur on it.
I've rebuild the steering console, adapted known elements and changed some other little things.
The whole sequence is now 500 frames (20s @25fps). It took 100h to render by eight i7-units.
So it's been a while again and since I made a huge step forward by casting an absolutely awesome lady to play Mara Jade in my fan film, I decided to honor that luck by releasing a little teaser showing an outdoor scene. Most of you will know which planet it is when looking exactly in the mist on the horizon.
Hmmm, not getting much from that horizon. I'm thinking from the mood and feel, possibly the Sith world Korriban?
Loving the look of this, but the carrion pterodactyl like creatures were the weakest element, that needs a bit of work, but everything else about it looked fantastic, and done to a very professional level of finish. Well done, I look forward to seeing more.
Hmmm, not getting much from that horizon. I'm thinking from the mood and feel, possibly the Sith world Korriban?
Loving the look of this, but the carrion pterodactyl like creatures were the weakest element, that needs a bit of work, but everything else about it looked fantastic, and done to a very professional level of finish. Well done, I look forward to seeing more.
:thumb:
Hey thank you TALON_UK!
It is always an honor to read your comments on my modest stuff
And your guess about the site is absolutely correct :thumb:
Unfortunately Character Animation is indeed a blind spot for me, so I already thought to look for someone who can. It's a free creature for DAZ/Poser called 'Dregon' and can be manipulated very deeply. 'Dregon
So if somebody knows of a passionated creature animator who is interested to join the project for a couple of short animation sequences (relaxed schedule), just PM please.
Meanwhile we had our first productive shooting of some Vader solo scenes. It was great to see the crew working perfect together, while I was enclosed and nearly helpless in the Vader Costume at 29 CA° (20:00pm).
By the way, since this May I'm SL-50655 of the 501st Legion, the greatest honor for a Star Wars fan and a great opportunity to have the most perfect equipped actors on set
Today I finished a further short sequence with an Imperial Interdictor. It's this model that I reworked for the movie. Of course my version will find its way back there when the movie is out.
This autumn we will start the buildup of the real Wilde Karrde Cockpit. Meanwhile we have collected tons of plastic forms and electronic waste and I'm especially looking forward to this work.
Sweet! I love that shuttle design, it's nice to see someone finally tackling it.
Thanks! :thumb:
There is a scene in my fan film where it has to stand there for some seconds.
I was looking desperately for a simple model to pimp, since I'm done with the primary modeling phase for some time.
But nope, sometimes destiny wants YOU to do it
I hope it ends up with something useable.
"the force is with me and i am one with the force"
As luck would have it, I became access to the Arnold Renderer, which is really a game changer.
Normally I go strictly after the devise: never change a running horse, during projects even more.
But even for the 'Karrde' the new approach in the materialization and lighting process allows for much more targeted work and realistic outcome.
I know Arnold for 4 weeks now and I took my Stardestroyer Bridge as a sandbox.
Old version with Cinema4D onboard Physical Renderer
New Version with Arnold 5 C4DtoA PlugIn
With the Substance Designer and Painter integration in Arnold this is really a hi-end 'painter's palette'.
And both products are very well documented which makes learning easy.
Actual redesign of the Karrde hull in Substance Painter for use in Arnold.
looks really great!
yes, Arnold is the best renderer out there IMHO ... its very versatile and really easy to use
Yes, an incredible renderer :thumb:
I really would like to rerender all the stuff I already made for the movie, but at some point, the movie should be finished.
The pending second half of the scenes contains now only to things, the Sentinel Shuttle and the Wilde Karrde.
This first two ships I modeled for the movie are to much influenced by my former architectural works. So I'm going to partially rebuild them using Substance for materials and Arnold for rendering.
I decided to give the new Karrde body much rounder edges
First details on the crew modules (some elements have yet a basic material).
@evil_genius_180 Thanks! :thumb:
The works on the Karrde are somewhat in the background now, but only because other topics of the fan movie are currently in focus. The Karrde comes last but not least in the production pipeline Still it's a beast, since the necessary additional detail work is really time consuming... :rolleyes:
At the moment I work on the preparations for outdoor and green screen shootings this year. Meanwhile we have already some great characters in the cast and I'm sure they will make a great appearance. Checkout www.darth-vader.ch for more.
In one of the 'real' shootings on a fantastic mountain summit, there will be some additional CGI building elements and the shuttles. To have my both shuttles ready at hand for compositing when the time comes, I already converted them for Arnold now.
And all I can say myself is 'WOW', because it's so fun to dive into the parameters of a new material system, when the outcome is that great, although you aren't a material master. Arnold just does it right and I hope they continue to expand the possibilities to provide this renderer also for users on a budget. Since it's Autodesk now, I'm sure they will do somehow.
"Closed formation!"
So all depends now on the camera tracking function and if that works -> rock'n roll
I'm very happy to report that we have completed the first third of our fan film and already over 50% of the second third. It's a huge amount of work but never before I'm so confident we will make it.
And now we have the second third of our fan film project completed.
This year we had a lot of live action shootings but were also busy with CGI and Post Production.
The last third is now action time for the Wilde Karrde. And since I started here with the Karrde some years ago, I like to show the final version of that ship for CGI production:
quite a difference to the first picture six years ago
Oh my god, how time flies...
The forum has already warned me while I was writing this post: WARNING! This is a REALLY OLD TOPIC!
I hope everyone is well after all these exhausting and challenging years. May this new year bring us peace and joy.
This is simply a sign of life of this project. The past few days we have actually completed almost the last task with the voice over in a recording studio. Now "only" the soundtrack is left to be done.
We expect to release the movie in any case this year
Posts
:thumb:
I'd love to know more about how you built a render farm like that. I used to just have 3 separate machines for rendering, but they're old and under-powered and dead now, so now it's a lot of overnight renders on my main machine instead.
I use MB Looks also. Lumetri can replace this plug only partially. I heard good things from FilmConvert, but I used to date the Grain Effect of MB Looks. Do you rate FC definitely better? My next 'must have'?
What I forgot to mention is that I also work with LUTs in AE. They make the most pronounced cinematic change in the grading. In the example above I used the two-stage IMPULZ LUTs. If I remember correctly, Episode IV-VI were shot on Kodak 5218 or 5219 analog negative. So I used Rec709_Kodak VIS3 500T 5219 as input LUT and Cineon to Fuji FPE (D65) as film print output LUT. It took a while until I realized the correct usage in the AE pipeline.
The farm ist a complete own scratch build based on a Ikea Besta case. On the picture below you can see how I constructed the inner frame structure for the main boards.
The front and rear panels are CNCd acrylic glasses with integrated fans and service parts (Power- and Reset-knobs, USB, HDMI). When you have no remote network connection (e.g. in BIOS mode) it's important to have access to the board via keyboard/screen.
The concept used for air circulation is quiet convoluted and hence difficult to explain in detail. But the air in the closed case is completely renewed every 0.5 sec, which is absolutely essential with the used Devil Canyon K-Processors.
The motherboards are Standard Z97 ITX PC's and run via TonymacX64 Hack on OS X 10.10. The stability of this solution is truly amazing and it's also fast. The CPU coolers are Arctic Freezers, they are also very good and inexpensive.
But this thing is nonetheless kind of a crazy borderline project which I therefore only can recommend myself with 'good conscience'
And it's also not cheap (ca. 8k Euros). I had to sell some of my beautiful old music synthesizers and parts of my fathers model railway collection to finance it. But why keep things you no longer use anyway. This project ist my model railway
If you have specific questions just PM me.
Currently I am working on an indoor shot showing a person in a somewhat smoky situation
It is only a provisional grading on it.
And this is a quick composite I've made for a fellow member of the Prop Den Vader Forum. His Vader life-size figure is equipped with the finest and rarest movie props and fits not badly in the virtual setting, despite the non-coordinated lighting. (and yes, the long reflection on the floor IS WRONG
There is still much work to do with the movie, but things continue to develop as I have foreseen :devil:
Time to show up another WIP, very close to final.
This time it's the steering console with screen display of Darth Vaders TIE Advanced X1.
References to the original are quiet rare. As usual I decided to mix known elements with own fictitious ones.
I've rebuild the steering console, adapted known elements and changed some other little things.
The whole sequence is now 500 frames (20s @25fps). It took 100h to render by eight i7-units.
The quick internet compression is as usual horrible
[video]https://darth-vader.ch/tswp/previews/mov/049_01_audio_master_exp_00000-01500.mov[/video]
Still a long way to go with that project but the peak is behind... from a statistical point of view
Loving the look of this, but the carrion pterodactyl like creatures were the weakest element, that needs a bit of work, but everything else about it looked fantastic, and done to a very professional level of finish. Well done, I look forward to seeing more.
:thumb:
Hey thank you TALON_UK!
It is always an honor to read your comments on my modest stuff
And your guess about the site is absolutely correct :thumb:
Unfortunately Character Animation is indeed a blind spot for me, so I already thought to look for someone who can. It's a free creature for DAZ/Poser called 'Dregon' and can be manipulated very deeply.
'Dregon
So if somebody knows of a passionated creature animator who is interested to join the project for a couple of short animation sequences (relaxed schedule), just PM please.
Meanwhile we had our first productive shooting of some Vader solo scenes. It was great to see the crew working perfect together, while I was enclosed and nearly helpless in the Vader Costume at 29 CA° (20:00pm).
By the way, since this May I'm SL-50655 of the 501st Legion, the greatest honor for a Star Wars fan and a great opportunity to have the most perfect equipped actors on set
Today I finished a further short sequence with an Imperial Interdictor. It's this model that I reworked for the movie. Of course my version will find its way back there when the movie is out.
This autumn we will start the buildup of the real Wilde Karrde Cockpit. Meanwhile we have collected tons of plastic forms and electronic waste and I'm especially looking forward to this work.
Have a nice summer! :cool::thumb:
It's only very first stage.
Thanks! :thumb:
There is a scene in my fan film where it has to stand there for some seconds.
I was looking desperately for a simple model to pimp, since I'm done with the primary modeling phase for some time.
But nope, sometimes destiny wants YOU to do it
I hope it ends up with something useable.
As always it's an interpretation and not an attempt for a very accurate replica. That would require a lot more time.
As luck would have it, I became access to the Arnold Renderer, which is really a game changer.
Normally I go strictly after the devise: never change a running horse, during projects even more.
But even for the 'Karrde' the new approach in the materialization and lighting process allows for much more targeted work and realistic outcome.
I know Arnold for 4 weeks now and I took my Stardestroyer Bridge as a sandbox.
Old version with Cinema4D onboard Physical Renderer
New Version with Arnold 5 C4DtoA PlugIn
With the Substance Designer and Painter integration in Arnold this is really a hi-end 'painter's palette'.
And both products are very well documented which makes learning easy.
Actual redesign of the Karrde hull in Substance Painter for use in Arnold.
yes, Arnold is the best renderer out there IMHO ... its very versatile and really easy to use
Yes, an incredible renderer :thumb:
I really would like to rerender all the stuff I already made for the movie, but at some point, the movie should be finished.
The pending second half of the scenes contains now only to things, the Sentinel Shuttle and the Wilde Karrde.
This first two ships I modeled for the movie are to much influenced by my former architectural works. So I'm going to partially rebuild them using Substance for materials and Arnold for rendering.
I decided to give the new Karrde body much rounder edges
First details on the crew modules (some elements have yet a basic material).
The works on the Karrde are somewhat in the background now, but only because other topics of the fan movie are currently in focus. The Karrde comes last but not least in the production pipeline
At the moment I work on the preparations for outdoor and green screen shootings this year. Meanwhile we have already some great characters in the cast and I'm sure they will make a great appearance. Checkout www.darth-vader.ch for more.
In one of the 'real' shootings on a fantastic mountain summit, there will be some additional CGI building elements and the shuttles. To have my both shuttles ready at hand for compositing when the time comes, I already converted them for Arnold now.
And all I can say myself is 'WOW', because it's so fun to dive into the parameters of a new material system, when the outcome is that great, although you aren't a material master. Arnold just does it right and I hope they continue to expand the possibilities to provide this renderer also for users on a budget. Since it's Autodesk now, I'm sure they will do somehow.
"Closed formation!"
So all depends now on the camera tracking function and if that works -> rock'n roll
With the new green screen studio and the expanded crew we've held a fantastic shooting session in June.
My fellow troopers did an amazing job so we could use all the scenes and made a huge step forward.
Here two stills of the shootings, provisionally color graded:
And a Behind the Scenes:
(No I didn't intend to look like Steven Spielberg that day
At the beginning of November we will shoot further scenes and this time with two of the main actors.
Unfortunately I'll not be able to post pictures of that coming session, since it would reveal to much.
But it's getting hot... that I can promise :flippy:
Enjoy our very first short teaser here:
Scavenger Hunt - A Star Wars Fan Tale
This year we had a lot of live action shootings but were also busy with CGI and Post Production.
The last third is now action time for the Wilde Karrde. And since I started here with the Karrde some years ago, I like to show the final version of that ship for CGI production:
quite a difference to the first picture six years ago
The forum has already warned me while I was writing this post:
WARNING! This is a REALLY OLD TOPIC!
I hope everyone is well after all these exhausting and challenging years. May this new year bring us peace and joy.
This is simply a sign of life of this project. The past few days we have actually completed almost the last task with the voice over in a recording studio. Now "only" the soundtrack is left to be done.
We expect to release the movie in any case this year