Final Animation - ''Boundaries'' 2010

Forgive the quality, YouTube is not amazing for that but you get the gist

The weekend

Right to update you all. My new hard drive was install over the weekend. It took a while as my PC was custom built it had no driver disks so they all had to be located. The motherboard, graphics card - everything. This took about a day to locate, burn disks of and reinstall them on my new PC. (i also have copies of these disks should my hard drive die again) Then i had to re install all my software. I did this leaving Maya until last as i know it has some problem, and it did.

For some reason when setting up the new new hard drive it had renamed itself H: instead of C:, which really is no immediate problem to your PC unless your using a C: for the licence code. The only thing is you cannot just rename your drive, it would mean formatting the hard drive again and reinstalling the whole thing, this time with no drivers but the hard drive and CD connected, then the drive would become C: which i wasnt prepared to do. So i had to go into control panel - administrative tools - computer management to bring up a screen that allows me to rename the letter of other drives. I needed H: to be a C: so i renamed the flash drive port that was currently a C: to an L: meaning that C: would now be free on the list. I then renamed my external hard drive from G: to C:. This all meant that if i moved the licence file onto the 'C:' drive (external hard drive) it could locate it properly and allow Maya to start. I know you're probably thinking why didn't i just programme it to search 'H:' to save all the hassle, but i couldn't, even if i tried to script it in the run menu as the C: drive search was embedded in the crack file.

This was all finally completed last night at 3am.

I took my pc to my friend john in dartford friday night after uni and stayed until midnight troubleshooting whether it was a virus, hardware fail or what until we dicovered it was the harddrive. (We connected a different drive and it tried to boot.) So then before work saturday i had to buy a new harddrive and take this up to dartford when john could start to build it into my pc. I then had work until midnight after which i went back up to dartford to collect my pc. Sunday before work i put most of my software on but had to leave beofre finishing and after work when i came home was when i was talking vis messenger tring to sort out maya, which brings me to now and today. No further than i was friday afternoon. With tonnes to do and a dissertation to work on. Oh, and the premiere file i had built my final animation in was on the harddrive and not the external so i have to restart that again.

R.I.P Harddrive

After its intensive 3 hour operation unfortunately he didn't pull through.
To the shops tomorrow to buy a shiny new one(thank god for the student loan), then back to techy friend to put it in.
Then to work 4pm - midnight.
Argh this was not in my schedule... catch up Sunday before work i guess!

BAD news

I am currently still at uni but a phone call from my mum has just let me know that my PC has blue screened and shut itself down and will not restart.

I have no idea why. The only thing i left open on it today before i left to get here was premiere, Maya was closed and i wasn't rendering anything. I'm hoping that when i get home today my PC has not died as i will be in big trouble.

I have a friend who is an I.T technician and i am in contact with him now arranging a possible meet tonight if necessary to revive my system.

Everything is backed up and saved so data loss is not a problem its just i will have no where to work on anything. I am not happy.

I cannot believe this.

Final update for the weekend

After starting to piece my rendered shots together i realised i had managed to read a number '5' as a number '2' not once but twice meaning I'm missing around 4oo ish frames so i have come in today to collect the remaining few frames.

On my home computer the final edit is almost complete and i will post as soon as the final frames are in and i have added the sound but i unfortunately i have no Internet at my home at the moment so i will be getting someone else to post for me... the boyfriend.

My surrogate blogger wont finish work until 10.30pm this evening so my post will be after 11pm most probably but online for commenting on over the weekend.

Although i have an extension until the 29th i really would like to hand this in, or have completed working on it by the Wednesday (27th) as i really need to focus on my dissertation, so im allowing myself a maximum of (including the weekend) 5 more days. Of course if i manage to finish before then EVEN BETTER!

I don't want to neglect my essay and its starting to play on my mind quite a bit.

Rendering update

..............Approximately 300 frames to go :)

Some friendly maths

Yesterday i managed to draw up a new render list sorting out exactly what frames i needed.

I checked the overnight renders time and found that all the PCs were:
rendering at about 17 frames per hour.
I calculated that with the remaining 3543 frames i needed to render at 17 frames per hour this was 208 hours/8days.
This means that on one PC alone it would take 8 days to render that many frames.
SO i managed to get 7 PCs working in DM3 2 PCs working in the new room and one PC working in the base room equalling 10 PCs altogether, theoretically meaning that all my renders, if i continue with the same amount of PCs throughout most of today, will be completed at around 6pm tonight.

I arrived at 8.45 this morning to find that i have 950 frames left to render.
950 divided by 17 = 135.7 (hours)
135.7 divided by 24 = 5.8 (during a day)
Again this is considering that i use one PC it will take 5.8 hours and i still have 7 for the moment.

My 7 PCs that were rendering in DM3 did not stop last night which was my biggest fear, in fact 4 completed, which hopefully means that i will be able to use the 3 remaining PCs throughout today without a problem interfering with tutorials etc. The rooms still have not been unlocked though so i cannot ask at the moment. Also the PC in the base room finished rendering last night too. So with this finished and to take some time from the remaining 950 frames i have been left with today i have divided the render time up again between a DM3 PC and the base room PC.

If there are no tutorials this morning i will do the same again in DM3 but im pretty sure this wont be possible today. Even so i should be back on track by at the latest 6pm thisevening.

There was one problem that did occur and that is the pc rendering the 'end_scene' had for some reason decided to revert back to a psd texture file instead of the jpg which mean this needs to be re-rendered but this will take 20hours. For the moment that pc is fine, it is set up in the new room and as long as i have the remaining other camera shots the end scene can wait until tomorrow for collection anyway :)

Ill post an update later on today...

The good news and the bad news

GOOD NEWS :)

All my PCs set up to render in the base room and the new room rendered, woo hoo!

BAD NEWS :(

None of the PCs in DM3 will render. I managed to get one PC rendering but all the rest come up with the above error message and then cause Maya to crash.

As long as i can render on some PCs I'm happy!

Rendering

After i re cached the spring for a third time (2nd time using ncache instead of geometry cache) and reloaded the cache into my scene it would allow me to render :)

I managed to set up four PCs to render over the weekend, which is almost all of the shots but the shot_cam_1, and then its just the other four cameras, all of which don't have a number larger to render than about 500, one even has a total of 149 frames to render so Monday morning i will come in and set up some new renders, return before uni closes and set up the remaining renders for overnight, so by Tuesday morning i will have all of my full set of completed renders - if nothing goes wrong that is!

Thank you to Phil, Alan and Tom for helping with the situation!

Link to the playblast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ijierHKvrQ

For some reason the clip didnt upload but this is the link to it.... ^

Im never EVER using ncloth again.

out of sync ncloth - reason UNKNOWN

I managed to fin and link up the new cache that i did overnight but for some reason it has cached everything about 20frames behind what it should have been, meaning that Jack moves upwards and the spring doesn't but as Jack starts to move downwards the spring then moves upwards. Its so frustrating because when i click to batch render in mental ray with the new, but out of sync cache it renders, but i cant render a floating head :(

I don't understand why it would have cached this way as i started at frame '1' which is correct but there may have been an error last night and so i am currently re-caching it again. The fact that the new cache renders sorts out my problem although i need the cache to work correctly at the same time.

Obviously caching my scene takes a hell of a long time, and the new cache i started just before 2pm is only at frame 3000 and Alan finishes at 4pm so hopefully my new cache will have reached 5400 by then so we to try and sort all of this out :(

I'm so fed up.

The play blast below is showing my problems. It is my ''renderable''cached ncloth spring, but out of sync..... in case my fed up moaning above doesn't make much sense.

Ncache

After setting up two PCs to ncache and not geometry cache the spring ncloth, for some reason this morning when looking at them both they have cached but at the wrong speed. The spring still squashes and stretches but out of time with when it should. I have no idea why this is but i will ask Alan as soon as he become available.

I did however set up two other PCs to render, one of which managed to get from frame 184 to 889 from 6.30pm yesterday to today and is still rendering now, so that's a bonus however i need sections from it right up until 5604.

I also set up another pc to render the end frames of my scene which took an hour and forty minutes to start the render (19:40 rendering started) and then finished at 01:32 this morning. That was for only 500 frames. So theoretically it can render 500 frames in five hours meaning that to render the 6000 frames i need collectively from the separate camera set ups, it should take approximately 60 hours - meaning that if i get this silly ncache to work properly and render on five PCs over the weekend and into Monday, by Tuesday morning it will have all rendered. OF course a few of the pcs will only need to render a few frames and so they would probably be finished before monday, and assuming that i can use the pcs in DM1 i could also render using more pcs further cutting down my render time and ensuring that i have it done by monday.

IF the ncache works.

Ncloth

Ncloth is the problem. Alan removed the ncloth from my scene and the render worked, which is terrifying. A jack in the box with no spring??! :(

Im re caching it all tonight and hopefully by tomorrow using the new cache and an usmoothed spring it will render. If not, i have absolutely no idea what to do next.

PC 1 render has begun!!

Feels like christmas all over again :)


....but the others wont start to render, so im back down to one pc rendering again. Alan finishes at 5pm ill have to ask.

Well...

It took approximately 3 hours to re cache the ncloth spring geometry in my scene and after saving it and checking, double checking and triple checking my render info i clicked the dreaded batch render.

I did have a geometry reference object attached to my original spring which allowed the projected ramp shader i did want to use, to say projected correctly even when the spring moved, but due to Mayas endless attempts to get confused by the ncloth I'm trying to use Ive opted for a basic Lambert shader, the same as the arms. Its not what i wanted, but it fits and doesn't ruin anything, and to be honest id rather have a red spring than no spring at all. Poor old Jack!

The renders themselves have not yet started and I'm hoping that's because they're calculating not sleeping/dying....

I hope to set up a number of PCs this evening to get all of my rendering done by tomorrow. I will be using the PC room so ill need to be in at about 8.45/9am tomorrow to collect my renders, this allows me Friday for a problem to occur, and to set up some PCs to render over the weekend should i need to.

Another error message...

Computers can be so mean

I'm worried to type these next two sentences without sounding as though I'm making it up but last night i managed to set together my premiere playblast files edited with the music and for some reason - unknown to me, there is no longer any sound and the clips were saved only halfway through what i had accomplished last night. I don't know how, i know i saved it :| but anyway i quickly finished off what i managed last night, tonight, but didn't worry about the sound for obvious reasons. (it still makes no sense with the opacity showing up like it did at uni as its not in any of my files at home, so once again, another mystery)

Its here to look at and comment on, at least thats better than nothing and it is a guide for me to follow once i have my rendered footage... and i will have my rendered footage, dammit!

More info...

HELP - rendering

I managed to set up one pc to start rendering however when it got a few frames down the line it stopped for no reason, also the other two pcs i set up to render from wont start, it says in the script editor... 'rendering with mental ray' but does nothing else.

It is also taking alot longer for each frame that i render, compared to the thirty seconds it was taking its now about 3 minutes.

Does anyone know why it would just stay at 'rendering with mental ray' and not progress any further? Is it something im doing wrong?

I wanted to render over night and now it looks like im not going to be able to today :(

Im trying not to PANIC

....thank you

Edited playblast

Almost there.

I have only just realised how long it has been since my last post - this is really bad. I had got a little sidetracked with maya - no excuse i know.

An update:

I have now finally finished animating my two characters, I'm just composing some sound effects to go with the opening sequence to the animation as at the moment i am still using temporary sounds as fillers so please disregard when looking at edited play blast below. The running order is all organised now and i have a render list for each camera.

The only problem i have had is that mental ray will not work on my home computer so i will start the final rendering when we start back on Monday. I hope to have all the sounds gathered by then anyway and by using my edited play blasts i will be able to just swap the rendered frames in. I have also thought about a CD disc cover which is below, and also given my animation a title - finally - its usually the first thing i do when it comes to a project but i just couldn't think. Ive decided to call it 'Boundaries' with the end credits re showing the title but including the text 'love holds no.. boundaries' (all shown below) The only problem that i have ( other than the mental ray) is that i have gone way over in time again. At present its too long although I'm not sure how to go about axing parts. This will be on the top of my list of questions when we start back, or feel free to comment now.

The ncltoh has been turned off in the entire play blast for obvious reasons and none of the objects have been smoothed so please excuse its appearance. Although the ncloth has already been cached throughout the whole animation. I have also included some quick renders as most of the scene is in darkness which obviously does not come across in a play blast. The two characters are in spotlight the majority of the time. Once again this is not a mental ray render :(














I am quite concerned as the snow seems to be staying for a while and i really really need to be able to render via uni as mental ray does not work for me here - is there any possiblity of coming in and setting up renders even if the uni is closed to students or does shut mean shut to everyone no matter what? im stressing. And since starting this blog post (2 days ago) i have tried to upload my playblast video and it wont have it - spends days saying uploading and nothing happens.The shadows are still not working as they are blocky and pixellated and i need to sort this our when on a pc that has mental ray. HELP