Switching to C4D R11.5

After having been working with Blender for the last 6 to 7 years, my boss told me today that he had ordered Cinema 4D.

Since I have tried out the Demo last year, I’m quite excited about ‘switching’ to C4D. It’s immensely powerful, and switching from Blender to C4D seems to be quite easy. No need to tell that you’ll have to google and work yourself through a couple of tutorials before achieving the results your aiming for. But it’s definitely worth the effort.

Lets see how fast I’ll get into the software. We’ve been switching to Final Cut a couple of months ago, and learning all the shortcuts, the new applications such as Color and Motion and internalizing the new workflows has been quite laborious. I hope I’m not going to suffer an input overload… time will show it

I’m surely going to keep using Blender, but my switch to 2.5 is going to last a bit longer.

If you’re interested in testing Cinema 4D, Maxon provides a fully functional Demo-Version on their site:

http://www.maxon.net/downloads/downloads/demo-version.html

Highlight of 2009: DLSR & ‘Must Have’ Video Gear

Hey Folks, long time no post.

But as a year comes towards its end, the amount of work increases in an insane way. As a matter of fact, spare time gets rare and week ends become even more precious. That’s one of the reasons why this blog hasn’t been updated for a long time.

As a technological highlight for 2009, I’d definitely choose the video mode of the new DSLR cameras, such as the Canon 5D Mk. II & 7D. The amount of video equipment available at the moment is simply astounding. I’m very excited about what will follow in 2010.

If you own a DSLR and you’re into filming, then here is a quick list of equipment that you definitely should check out:

-Glide Track – a kind of handy dolly replacement that you can mount on one to two tripods
-nanoFlash – a Flash recorder with SDI & HDMI Inputs
-Redrock Micro DSLR Cinema Bundle - transform your DSLR into a professional video camera
-Z-Finder – an adaptor that you mount on the LCD screen of your DSLR and that turns it into an optical viewfinder
-ikan HD-Monitor – you’ll definitely feel more comfortable using a TFT LCD monitor mounted on your DSLR. The benefits of using such a monitor should be self explaining…

Mentioning this, I have to recommend you a post on Philip Blooms blog. Philip got the opportunity to test some DSLR gear on the Skywalker Ranch, as well as to watch his footage projected on the screen of George Lucas’ private theatre.

And this is the result – don’t miss the 1080P option:

You might also be interested in what George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino said about the results. Just follow the Link to Philip Blooms article:

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/12/12/the-tale-of-lucasfilm-skywalker-ranch-red-tails-star-wars-and-canon-dslrs/

Even though I unfortunately don’t own a DSLR, I’m still very interested in the capabilities of these cameras. I’ll definitely rent one as soon as I’ll get an opportunity

But until then, I’ll have to keep photographing with my Sony DSC-H20 that I’ve just bought in October. Since I’ve made a job out of my hobbies, it is quite hard to find something new for relaxing and to get some distance from the daily business. For that purpose, I found out that photography might be something good – and it is. But since filming and photographing differ in many ways from each other, I preferred to start off with a rather small but powerful camera before spending loads of money onto a DSLR. Even though they don’t cost much these days, if you think about getting a DSLR, then always keep the additional gear in mind. Good quality has its price. You’ll not be happy to own a >500€ camera as long as you’ll be constrained on using a crappy tripod, missing a flash-light, filters, etc., just because you didn’t budget for it. This can, and will be very frustrating.
On the other hand, you’ll not be happy neither spending thousands of Euros just to find out that a DSLR doesn’t fit to your habits, or that you’re just not talented at photography. That’s the reason why I got myself a DSC-H20, which I can really recommend. 2010 is going to show me if I should think about affording a DSLR like the 5D Mk. II or the 7D.

Well, and to finish this post, here is my first source of inspiration for 2010, entitled “The Third & The Seventh” by Alex Roman, done with 3ds Max, Vray, After Effects and Premiere. Don’t miss the credits

Introducing Openfootage.net – Free Time Lapse Video Footage & HDR Panoramas

Whether you’re searching for some huge, up to 10000 x 4000 Pixels big HDR panoramas, or for some 1080P time lapse footage, you might find your luck at Openfootage.net. It’s definitely worth a visit!

Since everybody out there seems to know a bunch of stock texture sites like CGTextures or TextureKing, I think I shall introduce a site to you, that I’ve never seen appear anywhere. I’m talking about Openfootage.net.

Markus Huber, a 3d Animation artist from Salzburg (Austria), has founded the site that he defines ‘as a pool for 3d Animation artist’

You’ll find a lot of HDR Panoramas that are available in sizes of 2000×500 Px, up to 10000×4000 Px for free download ; as well as some free textures and time lapse video footage in 1080P, 720P, Pal 16:9 or Ntsc 16:9 – including respective preview videos.

so what about the license? Take a look at the FAQ on his page:

Can i use the footage for commercial works?

Yes you can, all the footage is released under the creative commons copyrights giving you the rights to use for commercial, non commercial, remixes or whatever you want. The only exception is you are not allowed to resell or redistribute the textures on other footage sites or collections.

So you give up all your copyrights?

The only thing I want from you is that you write my site www.openfootage.net in the credits of your work.

Thank you Markus for those great resources!

Quick update: Blender – render a normal pass that will work with Normality in AE

In case you got directed to this post via a direct link, be sure to check out the full article related to this update: Link

Based on ‘AndrewYYs’ comment:

AndrewYY

Sorry to say this after you finished, but the process can be simplified a little bit

Normal > Invert > Multiply > Darken > Composite

The add is not needed.

This is what your nodes-setup should look like:

Cheers Andrew

Blender – render a normal pass that will work with Normality in AE

A quick and easy solution on how to render a Normal Pass out of Blender that will work with the ‘Normality’-plugin in After Effects.

First of all, let me thank the user ‘testscreenings’ and Stefan Minning for their your support first. Credits go out to ‘testscreenings’ for finding the final solution.

Now lets get started!

If you ever try to render out a Normal Pass out of Blender, you’ll be wondering why the normals look some kind of strange.

Take a look:

Basicly, rendering a Normal-Pass out of Blender would consist in activating the “Nor” button in the ‘Render Layers’ settings, and either have your render saved as an OpenEXR file; or to route the ‘Nor’ output to the ‘Composite’-node using Blenders compositing-nodes.

But if you import your Normal Pass in After Effects and use it as the Normal-Map input for Normality, this is what you’re going to run into:

The ‘problem’ is that Blender renders a Normal Pass using the ‘World’ as default Normal Space. Since ‘Normality’ is using the Tangent Normal Space, this is how we’re going to convert our Normal Pass to make it compatible.

Here’s a shot of the final Compositing Nodes Setup:

- first, route the ‘Normal’ output from your ‘Render Layer’ to a ‘Mix’ node and turn its blending mode to ‘Multiply’

- set it’s value to 1.00

- click on the little gray field next to the ‘image’-input, and switch its color to Hex: 7F7F7F

- now duplicate your ‘Multiyply’-node and switch the blending mode of the duplicated node to ‘Add’

- route the ‘Multiply’-nodes output to the new ‘Add’-node

- create an ‘Invert’-node

- connect the ‘Add’-node to the ‘Invert’-nodes ‘Image’-Input

- duplicate your ‘Multiply’-node once again

- connect the ‘Invert’-nodes output to your ‘Multiply’-nodes input

- now use the Alpha Channel of you ‘Render Layers’ and route it to the second input of your final ‘Multiply’-node

- connect the ‘Multiply’-node to the Composite input

- render

This is what your result should look like:

Now this post-processed Normal Pass will work with the Normality plugin. Here’s the result using the corrected Normal-Pass out of After Effects:

The Blend file can be found here: LINK

This nodes-setup can be used as a Material Nodes setup too, check it out:

Be sure to check ‘Schnitzelkillers’ thread on Blenderartists.org for further information about this technique.

A Blend-file containing this Material-Node setup can also be found here: LINK

Thank you everybody, and now get out there and have some fun! F12 ftw!

Blender to AE – Maya Ascii camera export script update and enhancement

This script is definitely a must for everybody using Blender and After Effects!

If you didn’t follow the thread on Blenderartists.org, you’ll be happy to know that ‘osxrules’ has kept working on his ‘Maya Ascii camera export script’. In its earlier versions, the script allowed you to export camera IPOs out of Blender, so you could reimport them into AE.

The new version now exports the position, xyz-rotation, and scale data of all the objects contained within a Blender scene. This is definitely a huge step forward for post-processing work. Thank you very much ‘osxrules’.

You can download the script here: http://dev-art.co.uk/files/tracking.py.zip

The following video contains a shot which is based on the use of the ‘camera export script’. I’ve created the very last (and only) CG scene with Blender; the rest was done in AE. The challenge consisted in being able to replace the titles of the show every week, but without having to re-render the whole thing again.

This is the result – CG-scene starts @ 00:27:00:

Here is a small breakdown of the scene:

-Scene & modeling: Blender
-Lighting: Blender (radiosity)
-Post-production (confetti, flashes, background, glow,…): AE
-Title of the show: AE

Zürich HelpPoint commercial & making of

Most of you guys will know the actual Zürich HelpPoint commercial – an amazing peace of work.

For my opinion, the magic arises out of the soundtrack. It’s harmonies will infiltrate your mind and provide the recognition value that many commercials are seeking for… in vain. Though, if you listen to the soundtrack on its own, you are quickly going to recognize that there is something missing. The ‘body’-part is missing – as I am going to name it.

Just watch the beautiful sceneries, listen to that music, look at the cool effects. But it wouldn’t be that profound without the voice-overs, without that certain body part that makes it feel such comforting. Compare the various international versions of the spot on Youtube, and you’ll recognize that there is a huge divergence from version to version. For my opinion, the UK version might be the worst – lacks of dedication in the voice-over; and the german one the best. Simply because of its timing and the feeling the narrator brings over. Just check it out on your own:

Audio Normalization – Enhance the quality of you video tutorials

Video Tutorials are getting more and more popular – thank you guys for sharing your knowledge.

But one thing that I won’t get used to, is the average poor audio quality of professional & consumer videocasts. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect anybody to be in possession of a studio mic, a pre-amp, etc.

But there are very simple and almost magic ways to enhance your audio-track after you’ve recorded it.

After you’ve finished your screen capture:

- extract the audio track of your Video. There are several free apps that can do this for you – Quicktime, Super Encoder, MPEGStreamclip…
- import the audio track into an audio editor such as Audacity
- search for the normalize function and normalize your audio to the value of -0,1 dB

This should be the result

If you have some isolated peaks in your recording that keep the average level low, select the regions between the peaks manually and normalize them again.
Alternatively you could make use of a compressor.

In simple terms, a compressor is an automatic volume control. Loud sounds over a certain threshold are reduced in level while quiet sounds remain untreated. In this way it reduces the dynamic range of an audio signal. This may be done for aesthetic reasons, to deal with technical limitations of audio equipment, or to improve audibility of audio in noisy environments.

Usually, compressors come with some standard presets which you can easily use without having to worry – we only want to boost our audio here, we’re not running a professional production.

Choose a ‘vocals’-preset, render or apply the effect, normalize your audio track again. Import the processed audio track into the video editor of your choice and render your video out.

That’s it! Now you have a good and consistent video.

Energize!

Energize!

Lets get this blog fired up!