posted March 28, 2002 07:56 AM
Some animation stuff recently put together. Nothing spectacular (ie explosions and war), but some starship fly-bys and so forth. Check 'em out if you're interested. (DivX codec required - link on page)
posted March 28, 2002 12:20 PM
Curse you, DivX codec.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted March 29, 2002 03:13 AM
Very impressive! I especially like the Nebula/Merced flyby and the Fleet animations, though all four were great. It's nice to see some different designs represented! Regards Jb
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posted March 29, 2002 03:56 AM
Mac People have to jump through many many flaming hoops to make DivX go. Even then it doesn't work. Someone somewhere is reportedly developing a Mac DivX option and QT6 will supposedly support this, but I can't play your files on my mac, and I can't be arsed to set up my PC right now.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted March 29, 2002 04:42 AM
Sorry I didn't realise you were on a Mac. You could try the Alpha release of latest DivX for Macs, it provides full decoding capability, it's here:
posted March 30, 2002 04:05 AM
Damn this computer. I hate my computer, I know that I have all the programs needed but its says File Not Found or Unable to Load.
Time to get a new one... again.
From the pics I see, they're crappy pics but if I could play the animations I could say someting...
-------------------- Matrix If you say so If you want so Then do so
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posted March 30, 2002 04:48 AM
Well my Windows Media Player wanted me to get back onto the Net to download some codecs. So I did - only the Merced&Neb and the Bigfleet ones don't work. I need "vids: DIVX decompressor" and "vids: DX50 decompressor". WTF?
HELP! What does that mean and where can I get them from?????
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
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Jb
Ex-Member
posted March 30, 2002 04:49 AM
quote:Originally posted by Matrix: From the pics I see, they're crappy pics...
If you don't have anything nice to say... Regards Jb
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posted March 30, 2002 06:08 AM
The pictures are only small sized thumbnails to basically [i]show[/] what the animation involves. The actual resolution of the clips is much larger.
To play them you have to first go to this page and download and then install DivX 5.0:
posted April 01, 2002 06:58 PM
Well, it kind of worked. I could see the two connie flybys and they were looking pretty damned great, RA.
Alack, the Next Generation Era DivX Encoder is apparently too advanced for my Mac's 21st century processing technology. Poodoo.
So I'll ask the fateful question: How long did it take to set up and render these guys? (I'm working on something I might share here someday and it's been 5-7 hour renders on a 45 sec sequence for low quality 15fps 400X213. That Dualie 1GHz G4 is looking pretty good right about now.) Anyway, what I've seen is looking pretty great, RA. You might try moving the camera a little more slowly. It will, of course take longer, but it tends to make these things seem larger somehow. (Thanks, ST:TMP Commentary Track!) You also might try a wider angle on the camera and pushing it in a little closer again to bump up that scale and emphasize the subject from the background (also helps DOF if you want to get into that).
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted April 02, 2002 02:27 AM
The thing is there are just so many things you can do with animations, but these are just the first four. I've done five more since then, one being a redo of the large Federation fleet flyby. I've gone in to detailing the New Orleans for when it passes the camera, such as adding a shadow/detail effect in the windows and improving the nacelles and bussards.
As seen here, a couple more ships have been inserted bring up the rear.
The four new animations involve something I've wanted to do since I started in 3D - a large fleet of TOS ships on the move. I've done four experimental clips so far, none of which are flawless, hence I'm still working on it.
As for how long they take. The TNG fleet flyby took an afternoon to setup. It started rendering at about 7.15pm, and finished at about 1.30am, as I recall. So a little over six hours for that one. I'm using an Athlon 900, 512 SDRAm...
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
posted April 04, 2002 05:10 AM
Couple more animations have been added, one being a revision of the fleet flyby, much better in my opinion, and something I've always wanted to see, a fleet of TOS ships.