In Search of Crystal Caverns

[kameelian]

Hi folks,

Here is my latest M3D offering: Planet Hopping pt2: In Search of Crystal Caverns (quite different location to pt1 after the 1st minute). I think it's a bit of a different approach and the location is not anywhere I've seen before - have any of you seen it on your travels through the fractal world?
 
I've no idea why some faint pink fog should turn into the blood red sky; there is certainly nothing like it in any keyframe. I did Photoshop it out, but then decided to keep it in as a feature and wove it into the accompanying story that I have to go with the videos. If anyone knows why the red sky arrived though, I would be interested in understanding.
 
  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/EDEhxnWe8HQ&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/EDEhxnWe8HQ&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
 
Regards
Kam

[barkeg]

Very intresting! I loved pt. 1 too!
I'd like to know how long it took to render? Did you use antialiasing?
What frame rate did you use?

It's just because I'm writting my own renderer and I'm testing it for my first video. So I'd like to compare to know where I have to change something

Anyway, I like your videos a lot!

[kameelian]

Hi Barkeg.

Thanks for your comments.

It has been around a 4 month project, but I don't know exactly how long it took to render because of a number of things, e.g.:
1) rendering got stopped a few times and the timer gets reset each time. Most single 'on' period was 24/7 for perhaps a week or ten days.
2) due to graininess and extra 'improvement' inserts, many sections were redone twice, even three times - increasing the unused framecount(!)

The slowest areas were producing two frames an hour and the quickest around 4 a minute (mostly though approx 5-8 minutes each frame) - so it is not easy to gauge against.

Of course, the speed of your PC and the size of the frames will have a huge impact on times. I am led to believe that renderers that use GPU, rather than CPU calculations are much quicker.

I don't tend to use antialiasing (or not past 1 if it is on at all)

Frame rate is a bit of a disappointing mystery. As far as I was aware at the time, I was creating (mainly) 50 subframes 'tween keyframes (lowest 30, up to 220) with an assumed fps of 30 - so most keyframes represented almost 2 seconds duration. However, for some of the wide sweeping pans left or right, there were not enough subframes for the amount of sweep given, so they 'stutter' a bit. On top of this, I'm beginning to believe that (even though the final video shows 30 fps when checked) the original was nearer 10 fps not 30 () and to maintain a similar speed/duration at 30 fps but better smoothness, I will need to increase all subframes by a factor of 3 in the future (i.e. mainly 150). I don't fancy having to redo it all AGAIN at this stage though.

Hope this helps your project

regards
kam

[barkeg]

Thanks ,kameelian!
I've written a function to stop the rendering and proceed where it has been before because it's my only computer so I render over night and when I'm not at home. Sadly I don't know that much to writte a renderer on graphic card. I have seen one here doing the rendering at realtime, I think it was the Boxexplorer.

Well, the speed is nearly the same (at the same resolution and with a laptop) at a regular mandelbox. But with hybrids it lasts twice as much, and doing a hybrid with shadows kills my cpu

I ask you about antialiasing because I have everywhere some shiny pixels from the specular lights but maybe I can remove them without doing 'real' antialiasing.

Don't care about the fps, I didn't notice that (until you told me).

Anyway, I'll poste the video here when it's done (well, it's only a 43-sec/20fps video).
And there is a lot of work left to do.

Regards,
Barkeg

PS: I hope your working on Planet Hopping pt3

[eloop001]

Hi Kam

I really liked your video, but It had the unfortunate effect that I had bad dreams this night after having watched you video just before going to bed. The crystal Cavern is a scary place !

A little feedback on the video in general : A storyline is suggested, but it must also be fractally inspired as I fail to see the plot.

regs,

Eloop001

[kameelian]

Hi Eloop001,

Thanks for your comments.

My intention is not to give folk nightmares, but I am glad it had enough effect for you to dream about it at all!

I guess that the story in my head will not be obvious to viewers (how could it be?) - unless they read the booklet illustrated with stills from the videos, that I am also producing as an accompaniment to the entire saga (just a little project - whether or not it ever gets completed doesn't really matter). It's not a particularly radical story - A brief précis : Some seekers want to find the 'truth' about infinity (well we are in fractal land). They set off ‘planet-hopping’ to try and piece together their long forgotten folklore, myths and history, bearing a list of mythical characters to encounter...and a series of fragmented instructions: e.g. Follow the Hover Bugs at Tangleroot Hollow, find the Great Forest Guardian and, when the sky turns red, ask for entry to the Crystal Caverns and seek out the Oracle for the next clue. They have to get out before the storm stops or the Labyrinthine Forest will change beyond recognition and trap them there ....TBC

simples.

regards
Kam

[eloop001]

Hi Kam

Sound like a very good story. This is actually true art in the making. I look forward to part 3.

regs,

Eloop