Cloud Walk Cycles
Added 2019-08-02 06:09:20 +0000 UTCWill appear on YouTube here:
And can be downloaded directly from Mega here [is 2.1G]:
Update: Since that file is kinda big I just added two downloads below without music that fit under the 200MB Patreon upload file size limit. Both are made from the same 324 rendered frames:
1) One walk at 60fps interpolated. The 324 frames are ingested at 15 per second, half speed. Three more in-between frames are interpolated for every rendered frame, to make a smooth 60fps. This interpolation isn't perfect, but is the most intelligent algorithm with best results I've found using ffmpeg. It still creates artifacts, like when shadows pass over her face, or the blur along the edges of her swinging arms and legs. Swinging limbs are a big challenge for motion interpolation. I have been isolating figures from the background before interpolating whenever I can, to give the interpolation a nice clean set of images without background distractions whenever possible. Couldn't do that in this case since the camera is moving and shadows are visible and moving.
2) One walk at 30fps, original speed, without any motion interpolation. Here I ingested the 324 frames at 30 per second, and didn't create any in-between frames. This creates a 30fps video at the intended pace, though it looks kinda fast. And no weird motion artifacts, but it is not the buttery smooth you can get at 60fps.
For the "Red Torii" walk I actually manually created the in-between frames myself in 3D instead of using motion interpolation on the rendered 2D images as I've done here. That's the "right" way to do it but at least doubles the render time! Might try that with this cycle over the weekend if people want it. Let me know if so.
This scene has flowers and architectural details, so I needed to increase render time to 2 minutes per frame before it looked good. The cheerleader frames only needed 30 seconds to render (and on a higher end video card, 10-15 seconds per render.)
Also I tweaked the color to be more vibrant, less faded-out, like it was on the body scan in the same environment.
About the 324 frames:
Each comes from two separate renders, so there's 648 renders in all. Each moment in time is rendered twice, once for each eye, to get a stereo 3D pair. Why 324? Her walk cycle is 36 frames long, and she needs to repeat it nine (9) times to walk the length of the set. I rendered at 3840x1920, once for each eye, then cut out the middle 1920x1920 square from each, and pasted them together to make a single stereo VR180 1920p frame. The middle is 180 of 360 horizontal degrees-- I always render the full 360 per eye, but only keep the half that is in front of you, and throw out the 180 behind you.
Am in process of rendering this out again. Besides interpolation artifacts, and the billboarded flat magenta flowers (which hopefully don't look too fake passing by) there's a big issue that I won't mention since once you see it, it might ruin it for some people. I give it away in the YouTube description at the bottom.
After 648 renders, seeing this made my heart sink when I first saw it, and I knew what I'd be doing for the next two days of rendering! Do-over. This happens a lot so I'm looking forward to upgrading to a new graphics card someday. Then my turnaround time will go down. Please join if you haven't already! Every little bit helps.
About Music:
Am enjoying the time off from composing music, I used a free cheery track that I hope people like. I still had to rerender the song to match the walk pace (still a little off, sorry it was tricky.) In the end, it was almost as much work as making a new piece! I have a video I'll be posting later today that has sound effects, not music, for once.
