Hard Lesson in Animation

So I nearly finished up my first animation and decided that it was time to render it.  I had rendered bits and pieces as I went and did not really notice anything since they were single frames.  When you switch from frame to complete animation, you gain an appreciation for just how fast the brain works.  In order to fool the brain, the computer needs to display 24 frames each seconds.My animation is just under 10 seconds, so its length is just over 200 frames.  My first couple of tries went quick since I toned down the render requirements, but I would continually get errors with the particle system render, which made them fairly useless as something to display.  However, knowing the settings were high during the creation and animation layout stages and those images came out nice looking, I was left with only one choice.  Unfortunately, each frame on those setting takes between 12 and 15 minutes to render - as opposed ot the first time which was under one minute and the second which was three to four.

So, I have been rendering this animation since Saturday and it will take a decent bit of Monday to finish it.  Because of this long length of time, I have been afraid to work on the other project, which has a tendency to cause the modeling program to crash.  While I could restart the render from the last finished frame, as I am rendering each frame as an image, I would hate to loose anything I changed after saving last.  I have been fooling around with other items, but I am not sure if I will post any of those, especially since nothing is anywhere near any stage of completion.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Slowly Progressing through the Holidays

So I have been making progress, but it has been extremely slow.  So slow that I really do not have any images to post.  As I have said, currently I am trying to knock off two projects before the new year, or shortly into it, then return the the modeling for the game.  The one project which I am not really disclosing much on until its release is moving along at a decent pace, but nothing Earth shattering.  Since I am trying to keep it a surprise, I am going to leave it at that, it probably needs about four or five hours, before I am happy with it, then it will need to render and hopefully it will be done.

The other big project is the abandoned building I started back in October and which has not had much new on it since mid-November.  I have fixed some of the aspects I did not like so far.  I have a little to add still in terms of what has already been modeled.  After that, I need to get the flood lights up and textured to finish off that part of the project.  At that point I will do a final, before post-processing render.  Then I will move on to post-processing, which will take a little time I am sure, but I hope when compared with the before image, the difference is noticeable.  Estimating what that is going to entail, and assuming a minimum number of crashes and data loss, that is probably about ten hours - mostly because I need to learn about post-processing while I am doing it on this project.

Not really sure how much I am going to get done since I am trying to enjoy some of the gifts I have received over the holidays, but I really do want to finish these projects and get back to the game.  Once back on my project, I will probably start blocking out a level or two, just to get a feel for how large I want the map to be and how much I need to make.  From there I will make a list and start doing one piece at a time, slowly building the level in something playable.  Once the level is done, I will worry about the tanks, weapons, turrets, satellites, and other non-static objects.  Well, hopefully I have something next time, until then,
~gunnah

The Holiday Season

So it is that time of year when everything is down to the wire and nothing gets done, so why should I have expected any of these projects to be any different?  I did work on modeling, but it was mostly just fooling around learning little things.  I worked on making an arch and then modeled a leg, but nothing really with which to do anything constructive.  Hopefully, with my altered shift for the week, I can get to something a little more productive.  I would really like to get those two projects I have been working on finished for the end of the year so I can start the year off fresh.

I think I will keep my ramblings short this time.  So until next time,
~gunnah

Temptation of the Holidays

So I did not get anywhere near as much done as I was hoping.  I am going to blame the lack of progress and missing Fridays post on working overtime, being semi-true.  I have found myself fairly run down and just needed a rest from everything, so over the last week, what little time I was not at work, I was asleep.  Hopefully the coming weeks will be more forgiving and I can begin making progress again.  I really need to finish this couple of side-tracks and get back to the main reason for all of this.

With that little bit out of the way, I can move on to the title.  Over the previous week I found two holiday themed contests, though I have a problem with both.  The one ending first, I simply do not have enough time to complete.  I have a great idea, but working full time and missing the first half of the competition, I feel I could never finish the project in time - just look at the numerous work in progress pages never finished..  The second competition I feel I could have done, but I lack the great idea.  Originally, I was going to but everything else off until I finished these, meaning I would not get back to where I was until the second post of the new year.  However, I think I am going to skip these for the time being and see if anything is run during the spring.

Hopefully, I will have something to show for next post.  At the moment I do not have an extra work slated for the next week, but that can change real quick.  Until next time,
~gunnah

And the Torque Tutorials are Wrapped Up

I have finished the Torque tutorials, which is a nice plus.  I do not feel I learned everything I need, but I do think I got a good start on the basic layout of the development kit.  Of course, there is nothing to show.  As I mentioned before, I was trying to get through the tutorials as fast as possible and this precluded making models and things of that nature.  Hopefully in the near future, I can get something like a mock up level made.  But I would not hold my breath since that may take a while.  On the plus side most of the tutorials worked.  For some reason the weapon models did not load properly, but that was not a big concern of mine.  They behaved as they were intended to, and the models came with the engine.  My only other problem was I could not package the tutorial.  Apparently their old code was written poorly and they have not made the time to correct it, so the button does nothing.  When I went to do it manually, it said my PhysX engine was either not installed or I needed to set a environmental variable.  I did not feel like doing either, so I have not worked through packaging a game yet.  To be honest, I am hoping the graphics version is up and running by the time I am ready to package a game since it looks much easier than the command line version available to me now.  That about wraps up Torque for the moment.  I seem happy with it, though who knows where I will be blown by the time I am ready to release.  Unreal has a new version coming out, I may want to look at that - at least the UDK version of it.

I also want to apologize for missing the Friday post.  Long week and I just forgot.  Actuially I fell asleep which is almost the same as forgetting.  But it was not like I had that much to say.  Next week looks to be filled with overtime, so my post for next Friday may be skipped if I have nothing new to say.  Until next time,

~gunnah

Should Learn to Hold My Tongue

So after a promising Monday, I ended up working overtime most of last week.  That is why there was no post Friday, there was nothing new to post.  I am hoping this week will work out a little differently, but who knows what is in the cards.

As for what I actually did, it was not much.  I started the new weapon tutorial for Torque, but got almost nowhere with it because of the overtime situation.  I still need to wrap up the image I have been working on for a month and a half, which feels so close but so far.  That being said, I did start watching a few new tutorials.  I plan on working both tutorials into a small ten second animation which is going to start the game.  I have most of the animation laid out, but I will go over details when the animation is further underway.

That is it for now, hope everyone has a good week and I can get something done.  Until then,

~gunnah