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cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
Felt like making something today but nothing too serious.
Got the bugatti model from mecablocks, gave it some new materials with triplaner maps and render time bevels, then took a background from hdri haven and projected it onto low poly geometry.
The shadows are crap, I didn't bother properly integrating it.



I might expand on this, it was fun - do an ash thorp style car porn set, but using lego models scaled up to actual size.

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Bape Culture
Sep 13, 2006

Haha that’s absolutely amazing!!

Songbearer
Jul 12, 2007




Fuck you say?
That is so loving cool

I've been collecting various cool vehicle renders for inspiration so if anyone has any cool artists to reccomend I'd love to see them, preferably ones that have some cartoonish/stylish element to them rather than just renders of actual cars

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe
Looking at expanding my workflow a little bit. We just won a food client and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to try some nice food stuffs in C4D/Arnold.

I was going to get a C4D -> zBrush -> Substance round trip workflow going. Really as an excuse to try some new stuff when I don't have to pay for it ha.

Does anybody have any experience with the smaller Cintiq (or compared to the One)?
https://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Cintiq...2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

I've worked on an old school Cintiq and I much prefer it to traditonal Wacoms.

floofyscorp
Feb 12, 2007

I have a Cintiq 22(which is the Medium size, I guess) and I love it. I have a pretty big desk though. 16 is probably big enough to be comfortable too. I had a 13HD years ago and it was just too small to work with.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

floofyscorp posted:

I have a Cintiq 22(which is the Medium size, I guess) and I love it. I have a pretty big desk though. 16 is probably big enough to be comfortable too. I had a 13HD years ago and it was just too small to work with.

Yeah I would love the 22 but my desk is pretty full and it wouldn't be a full time use device. Just something to pull in when I need to sculpt a bit.

Also they just bought me a $4,000 Puget system that is just totally ripping so I don't want to stress the coffers too much haha.

Jewel
May 2, 2009

My personal suggestion is Wacom at this point is akin to Apple or Gucci -- the price doesn't represent the quality. They're High quality, for sure, but not much more than its competitors. I've been using a Huion Kamvas Pro 22 (2019 ver; ~$700 when not on sale -- the 16 inch is ~$400) for painting purposes for a year now and it's been great; though I've also heard good things about xp-pen

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

Jewel posted:

My personal suggestion is Wacom at this point is akin to Apple or Gucci -- the price doesn't represent the quality. They're High quality, for sure, but not much more than its competitors. I've been using a Huion Kamvas Pro 22 (2019 ver; ~$700 when not on sale -- the 16 inch is ~$400) for painting purposes for a year now and it's been great; though I've also heard good things about xp-pen

I meant to ask about Huion too. We use several Huion's around here (traditional, not screen) and while they get the job done on the budget, they definitely don't seem as high quality as the Wacom's.

But the sampling size is pretty small for me so I'm still open to it. Especially when it's going to be something I might not use but once or twice a week.

SubNat
Nov 27, 2008

Yeah, Wacom very much is a luxury product with a near total monopoly, you pay for the brand and the support, mostly. And many features are artificially segmented into the more expensive products, like tilt, etc.
(Though to be fair, Wacom are very good about supporting devices beyond their lifetime. Carrying a tablet through multiple windows versions is usually not an issue. )

My main issue is that I have a couple Huion models I'm interested in.
But the only store that sells them is a shitass piece of garbage store that I've been in a fight with for the last year over a defect laptop they sold me, so I refuse to give them a cent more.

I hear the new Wacom Intuoses also have a rougher, matte cover nowadays which supposedly just eats through nibs?
Whenever I see reviews about the Intuos Pros there are a bunch of people complaining that unless you pay another chunk of cash for a smooth/glass panel to smack on top, you'll be tearing through nibs way way faster than previously.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe
Great now I'm hand wringing over the latest Huion 16 (2021) or the Huion 16 Pro - Which is about $100 cheaper.

The rational thought is to get the cheaper one since this is primarily for ZBrush and Substance use and I'm not a hardcore illustrator.

But my stupid loving nerd brain will not let me buy an older product.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
The older product will have more stable drivers.

Tell yourself that.

It might be a lie, but it's the perfect reply to the "the new one has all the fixes for the problems with the old/oh wait the new one has more problems that no one has found yet" conundrum.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


I have an Intuos 3 from 15 years ago that I still use. When I went to animation school they gave us brand new Intuos 4s and I still use the 3 because it's an indestructible plastic rectangle that has never let me down. Nowadays they're maybe making the product so it won't last over a decade.

echinopsis
Apr 13, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
They don't make things like they used to

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

Ccs posted:

I have an Intuos 3 from 15 years ago that I still use. When I went to animation school they gave us brand new Intuos 4s and I still use the 3 because it's an indestructible plastic rectangle that has never let me down. Nowadays they're maybe making the product so it won't last over a decade.

I *finally* retired my Intuos 2 last week haha.

I mean it still works just fine but I need something better.

Grey Hunter
Oct 17, 2007

Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets
Blender question - I'm trying to render a video with a alpha channel so I can use it as an overlay in vegas pro, but when I put it in, the image itself is either transparent (with add as the blend mode), or the alpha is black (when its on source alpha.).
With a single image png source alpha works, but I'm at a loss with the video.

I rendered it out using the quicktime 7 format following a youtube format - is there an easy fix to get it looking right, or is there a better technique?

ImplicitAssembler
Jan 24, 2013

Bah, Disney is closing down Blue Sky Studios. Not unexpected, but still :(.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

Grey Hunter posted:

Blender question - I'm trying to render a video with a alpha channel so I can use it as an overlay in vegas pro, but when I put it in, the image itself is either transparent (with add as the blend mode), or the alpha is black (when its on source alpha.).
With a single image png source alpha works, but I'm at a loss with the video.

I rendered it out using the quicktime 7 format following a youtube format - is there an easy fix to get it looking right, or is there a better technique?

The issue is going to be (I'm guessing) that very few video codecs support an alpha channel. Whatever you're rendering is not getting an alpha channel included. Your blend mode isn't going to help you here (except in very specific circumstances).

As far as I know you could use ProRes 4444 or Quicktime with Animation codec. What format are you using?

I have never used blender so I'm not sure on it's video output capabilities. If you're exporting a video format that supports alpha channel, make sure that setting is turned on in Blender's output settings.


The best solution is going to be not to output a video file, but rather an image sequence. That way you can output an image sequence of PNGs with transparency and then import the image sequence into Vegas Pro. When you import an image sequence into a video editing app, for all intents and purposes, it'll treat it as a single file video element. But with the properties of the images (that may not be available to certain video codecs).

Follow the Frame Sequence workflow here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/output/animation.html

Grey Hunter
Oct 17, 2007

Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets
That's what I'm looking for!
I'll give it a go.

EoinCannon
Aug 29, 2008

Grimey Drawer
I have an old cintiq 21" from when they were 4:3. It must be more than 10 years old
10 years old and still chugging along, I like it

Neon Noodle
Nov 11, 2016

there's nothing wrong here in montana

EoinCannon posted:

I have an old cintiq 21" from when they were 4:3. It must be more than 10 years old
10 years old and still chugging along, I like it
Same

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

EoinCannon posted:

I have an old cintiq 21" from when they were 4:3. It must be more than 10 years old
10 years old and still chugging along, I like it

We have two of these but they both ded

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


ImplicitAssembler posted:

Bah, Disney is closing down Blue Sky Studios. Not unexpected, but still :(.

I sort of expected it but the cruelty of not letting them finish a film that only had 10 months to go and was apparently 75% done is just awful.

floofyscorp
Feb 12, 2007

I haven't tried other brands to compare, but I've had nothing but good experiences with Wacom hardware(the software maybe not so much, although fingers crossed I haven't had any real issues in a year or two) - it's durable as hell and feels good to handle. When I got this Cintiq it replaced an old Intuos I'd had for upwards of ten years - besides some spots of nail polish here and there it was still in perfect working order so I passed it onto a friend. Certainly felt like I'd got my money's worth out of it.

Sagebrush
Feb 26, 2012

SubNat posted:

I hear the new Wacom Intuoses also have a rougher, matte cover nowadays which supposedly just eats through nibs?
Whenever I see reviews about the Intuos Pros there are a bunch of people complaining that unless you pay another chunk of cash for a smooth/glass panel to smack on top, you'll be tearing through nibs way way faster than previously.

This has been my experience, yes. I got a new Intuos Pro as part of the COVID wfh poo poo and it does chew through nibs.

The surface doesn't feel all that different from the older Intuos models I've used (though it is definitely more toothy than, say, an old Graphire) so I wonder if it's just that they changed the nib plastic. I have been able to get them to last about twice as long by sanding them round again with a nail file once they get squared off, but yeah, you'll need replacements eventually.

sigma 6
Nov 27, 2004

the mirror would do well to reflect further


Same here but I am currently faced with the problem of using a modern laptop with a cintiq which requires a DVI connection. Uh.... Maybe a DVI to HDMI adapter? Ugh.

Harvey Baldman
Jan 11, 2011

ATTORNEY AT LAW
Justice is bald, like an eagle, or Lady Liberty's docket.

I use 3D Studio Max a lot, but I want to find out what a good program to use would be for more mechanical simulations. Stuff like this:

https://youtu.be/uMwHehjRyVo

I'm trying to design a toy gun with a magazine release that works and similar details... I know I could do some of that in Max with constraints, but I have to imagine there's better programs to test assemblies that push or pull each other.

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea

SubNat posted:

I hear the new Wacom Intuoses also have a rougher, matte cover nowadays which supposedly just eats through nibs?
Whenever I see reviews about the Intuos Pros there are a bunch of people complaining that unless you pay another chunk of cash for a smooth/glass panel to smack on top, you'll be tearing through nibs way way faster than previously.

I remember when I got my intuos 3 15 years ago I was told to tape a piece of paper over it - with the caveat that while it chews through nibs faster it's so much better having a rough surface than the crappy smooth one.

Grey Hunter
Oct 17, 2007

Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets

BonoMan posted:

The issue is going to be (I'm guessing) that very few video codecs support an alpha channel. Whatever you're rendering is not getting an alpha channel included. Your blend mode isn't going to help you here (except in very specific circumstances).

As far as I know you could use ProRes 4444 or Quicktime with Animation codec. What format are you using?

I have never used blender so I'm not sure on it's video output capabilities. If you're exporting a video format that supports alpha channel, make sure that setting is turned on in Blender's output settings.


The best solution is going to be not to output a video file, but rather an image sequence. That way you can output an image sequence of PNGs with transparency and then import the image sequence into Vegas Pro. When you import an image sequence into a video editing app, for all intents and purposes, it'll treat it as a single file video element. But with the properties of the images (that may not be available to certain video codecs).

Follow the Frame Sequence workflow here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/output/animation.html

Bingo! Got it to work. it was the quictime thing, but I needed to do the PNG's with the transparancy and then put them into the video editor in Blender.

Thanks for the help!

HorseHeadBed
May 6, 2009

Ccs posted:

I sort of expected it but the cruelty of not letting them finish a film that only had 10 months to go and was apparently 75% done is just awful.

Particularly as that film was Nimona, which I didn't even know they were making until I heard it was cancelled. The comic was good and it would have made a fun movie.

SubNat
Nov 27, 2008

Hm, apparently some of the infinite Fortnite money has gone towards Epic making a character creator.

https://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/1359518804150255616

There's a sample project with 2 output files/models.
But considering it's a cloud based platform for them (why?), who knows what it'll cost to use in projects, or when it'll be ready. (Sometime this year.)

The cynic in me assumes that it's web-based purely so that it can be handled under a subscription / tightly controlled license. (Sorry. 'Cloud streamed app'.)
Which is a shame because I imagine having a robust base for character creation could be very useful in any games that would like to use it to expand on for ingame character creation.
If it easily allowed for adding custom morphs, shapes, etc it could be pretty useful for any human-adjacent character.

It doesn't really seem like it does anything that'd warrant cloud-based computing, unless it's using it to speed up some aspects, like re-weighting hair, instantly packing and compiling texture maps etc. I imagine a good chunk of it is just painting and combining normal + disp maps, alongside a ton of morphs that get baked down to a base shape on export.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

SubNat posted:

Hm, apparently some of the infinite Fortnite money has gone towards Epic making a character creator.

https://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/1359518804150255616

There's a sample project with 2 output files/models.
But considering it's a cloud based platform for them (why?), who knows what it'll cost to use in projects, or when it'll be ready. (Sometime this year.)

The cynic in me assumes that it's web-based purely so that it can be handled under a subscription / tightly controlled license. (Sorry. 'Cloud streamed app'.)
Which is a shame because I imagine having a robust base for character creation could be very useful in any games that would like to use it to expand on for ingame character creation.
If it easily allowed for adding custom morphs, shapes, etc it could be pretty useful for any human-adjacent character.

It doesn't really seem like it does anything that'd warrant cloud-based computing, unless it's using it to speed up some aspects, like re-weighting hair, instantly packing and compiling texture maps etc. I imagine a good chunk of it is just painting and combining normal + disp maps, alongside a ton of morphs that get baked down to a base shape on export.

I mean games are nice, but Epic is really starting to become a massive player in the film world. This could have awesome implications moving forward. Obviously not necessarily hero shots (at first), but this could great speed up crowd workflows, etc. Very cool stuff.

I wonder how long until these big players go past just software as a subscription and move into machines as a subscription. Don't buy a $4k machine! For just $40/month you can Teradici into an always-up-to-date high end workstation!

SubNat
Nov 27, 2008

https://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/1359579257303945220

Huh, turns out it'll just be another UE tool, basically. Under the same revenue umbrella as the engine itself. It's still insane that they're not grabbing royalties for anything except games.
I guess games are big enough that they don't feel the need to go after 'linear-media' producers? It strikes me as odd, but I guess trying to chase down revenue from films with 'creative accounting' might not be worth the hassle.

BonoMan posted:

I mean games are nice, but Epic is really starting to become a massive player in the film world.

Yeah, but like all these high end virtual production features and the like: it's nice that some of them can trickle down into gaming as well.
Either way, I hope it'll be possible to utilize it in runtime applications/local editor as well, and that the 'cloud based app' is just for anyone -only- wanting the metahuman tools to iterate in, and not the entire engine, since it's apparently just pixel-streamed.

SubNat fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Feb 11, 2021

ErrEff
Feb 13, 2012

You can download the characters ready for Maya. They want to accelerate Hollywood's integration of Unreal into film production workflows.

Epic posted:

When you’re happy with your human, you can download the asset via Quixel Bridge, fully rigged and ready for animation and motion capture in Unreal Engine, and complete with LODs. You’ll also get the source data in the form of a Maya file, including meshes, skeleton, facial rig, animation controls, and materials.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


SubNat posted:

https://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/1359579257303945220

Huh, turns out it'll just be another UE tool, basically. Under the same revenue umbrella as the engine itself. It's still insane that they're not grabbing royalties for anything except games.
I guess games are big enough that they don't feel the need to go after 'linear-media' producers? It strikes me as odd, but I guess trying to chase down revenue from films with 'creative accounting' might not be worth the hassle.


Perhaps the real money is in support contracts the way it is for Autodesk. Yeah, you can use the software, but if something is going wrong with the software and you want us to help out? Buy an expensive support contract.

Bape Culture
Sep 13, 2006

Autodesk is expensive straight up as well though! All I can assume is unreal want to corner the market and then rinse users once’s it’s integrated well.

Has anyone used Adobe substance? How does it work to stop me from making the materials I want and then cancelling the monthly payment? Does it somehow check for a licence each time a material is applied? I just want some nice accurate car paints etc to play with and don’t want to commit to more monthlies.

ErrEff
Feb 13, 2012

The last time I used it (before Adobe) it only checked for the license at launch; they made their money on selling version upgrades after your yearly license ran out.

Unless something big changed you just make the material and store it as a file locally, and can share it with others.

echinopsis
Apr 13, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
lol I remember when I was paying like $20 a month to use ue4 just to gently caress around.

Songbearer
Jul 12, 2007




Fuck you say?
Sharing my WIP that I've been working on for the better part of Feburary, probably two weeks in. My second Blender project following the Unwritten Rules Of Blender that say if your first ever project is a gun it is mandatory your second project is a car.

This one is a weird combination of 20's - 50's automotive design and I've learned just how little I know about cars during the process. The idea is that it's a car driven by a team of undead hunters, so the engine is powered by boiling holy water and released as consecrated mist from the exhaust. Panels flip open to deploy flamethrowers, stake launchers and other fun gadgets such as a flippable headlight cover with a crucifix inset into it for the light to shine through. I've animated a convertible roof which was really drat rewarding to implement, it was a big "Yahoo!" moment when I got it to work.







I'm considering this about 40% done with the modelling. I'm relatively happy with the shape of the exterior but it needs to be spruced up with some art deco stuff, anti-undead iconography and such. I still need to sew the exterior together and put wires/pipes etc on through the engine and gizmos, but to be honest I'm really daunted by those steps so I'm putting them off til the end. I've been following this guide that was reccomended:

cubicle gangster posted:

I think even people good at it don't use one mesh

This is a good read - https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/dY3r/how-to-tackle-vehicles-main-steps-170pages-pdf
I could have sworn it was free. He's put lots of good info out there. I quite like how all of his talks and info are a bit sloppy and haphazard but come together in the end - they mirror his style of modeling.

and although I'm not even a fraction of a hundredth as good as this guy and I had no prior idea what I was gonna make, it's been real helpful. If anyone can think of anything I should be focusing on or changing at this stage in my model I'd love the feedback.

SubNat
Nov 27, 2008

I know I've been drumming the Unreal drum a lot, but: Nvidia's DLSS can now be used without having an approved project. (Previously you'd need to apply, and could be rejected if you had a smaller project.)
Meaning anyone in nvidia's development program can now use it, and it's just a drag-n-drop plugin, not a tedious compile-from-source engine branch.
(It's only a 'generic' DLSS, not one specifically trained on your game.) ( https://developer.nvidia.com/dlss/unreal-engine-4.26-plugin (If you try it, gotta set the app id to 1 instead of 0 in the plugin settings!) )

I smacked the Meercat project into it, and: (1080p, 2080ti) (Or well, technically 2171x1082 since it's just a big viewport capture.) (It's a project WETA Digital and Epic collabed on, while Epic were working to improve the hair/fur/feather system.)
First: DLSS OFF, native res. 30FPS. Second, DLSS Perf, 50FPS. (Check the imgsli link instead, imgur apparently turned 'em to jpgs)



IMGsli for more in-detail comparison:
https://imgsli.com/NDA4Mzg

The DLSS one is slightly coarser in the Meercat fur, and the RT-shadows are noticeably noisier. But considering it's a good 66% faster, it's mighty impressive to me.
I'll probably use it in movies where I spend a good while rendering, and small noise like that can easily end up getting squashed by compression, etc.

It is interesting how it's biased in reconstructing smaller/thin detail. Stuff like the twigs/plants stand out better in the DLSS one, even though it's getting rendered at 50% native res.
The grass in the upper left, on the cliff looks notably grassier. Though to balance it out specular highlights and the light get a lot noisier.

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cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
AI reconstruction in general is great & becoming really important in what we do.
The last commercial project I posted was upscaled from 24fps/1080p to 60fps/4k and it looks spectacular.

Definitely not as good as a native 4k60, but considering the source, it looks significantly shaper and smoother on a TV after an overnight semi automated process.

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