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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Hey guys! :-)
In your own personal experiences, how much memory space does actual animation take up vs the scene being set and the characters being on the set?
Our debut video clip will be with someone speaking (quite passionately) and arms moving while he is speaking.
There will be roughly 20 characters in the background.
Some of the characters will be in the near background and then some of them will be standing further out in the background.
The characters will have very light swaying / normal 'standing still' motion to them.
There will be a few close-ups of the characters in the very near background (which of course means we need good quality characters there and the ones behind them).
I already have most of the people placed inside of the very plush scene and it is taking up about 5 GB so far... We will probably land at 6 GB total before the audio is loaded and the animation begins.
Can a used 12 GB graphics card handle that many people?
I've heard a little bit about 'crowd walls / billboards'. When would those be recommended and under what camera views would those not be recommended?
Or should we be OK either way to run the scene?
We need all of the advice you can give us, you guys!! We are finally here!
~ Kimmie
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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i have tests with 16 avatars at 25 fps , * very workable for me, but i recomend some things
first one - you scene must be just one prop, merge togheter all your scene in only one object outside iclone ( max, blender anyone )
second one, use at maximum 4 cams * you dont need more than that believe , just alternate your 4 cams m create many cams will
drop down the performance
third one if will be a massive crowd use cc3 to baking all maps into a single one, and transform the characters on animated props.
have fun 
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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remember all things slow down iclone and make the experience bad. this last version reduce it a lot but still a problem.
so dont use many lights
dont use many cams
dont use many objects ( merge all things will be static on your scene )
think about a developer inside unity creating for android, how less drawcalls more enjoyable experrience
its bad say that about iclone its many times better now , but performance problems still persists.
ps i use a Titan X with 12 gigs.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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ahh, many motion clips will decrese the performance too. ahahahha.
so work in pieces. like 4 shots per project...
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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We have greenery everywhere in the scene. So we need to keep them in iClone.
All of our props in this scene are rocks and trees and flowers and shrubbery.
1st question: Where is the button at to clear anything it has already recorded in our scene?
I ask this because we did some test renders with various wind settings.
When we play it back, it has some of the variations recorded and changing in it.
My 2nd question is on the wind itself: Where is the wind setting for wind on objects?
All I see is 'plant wind'.
I shut off the plant wind altogether for the moment (just to start fresh).
But their flowing outfits are still blowing in the wind when I play it back.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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wind just interact with speed tress , is what i know. you cant use wind to interact with props, for it you want to work with another iclone module
nvidia physics for no soft models ( props )
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Wildstar: All I know is when I play it back, the wind is blowing the outfits.
So somehow the wind is picking up the outfits too.
They are soft flowing garments. So maybe they are just easy for the wind to move?
~ Kimmie
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Also: How do I clear what it has recorded on the scene to just start fresh in recording the scene?
~ Kimmie
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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I figured out part of the windy clothing... I didn't have it calculate collision or transfer skin weights on a few of the characters' clothing pieces because those articles fit them just fine without any issues or any penetrating of the other clothing items... And they also moved with various poses of the characters... But it still puzzles me as to how those clothing items can look like they are blowing in gusty winds when the characters have been standing completely still.
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By mtakerkart - 5 Years Ago
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To activate wind on object , you must activate physics on the object then you have access to the wind setting.
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Thanks! Good to know!
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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mtakerkart (5/28/2019)
To activate wind on object , you must activate physics on the object then you have access to the wind setting.
thx mtaker, i dont know that.
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By TonyDPrime - 5 Years Ago
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Kimmie, who is the 'We' you are referring to in the title and in the first post. (ie - "We are almost there, We are ready"...)
Do you have any partner(s) helping you - and you together are the 'We'....maybe a situation even where partners are more familiar with external softwares and then say you are the one responsible for iClone?
Or, is it that you are doing this alone, but the hardware you have is the 'team', as it were, and so you view you, and the PC hardware, as the 'We'.
Or, is it a contract where you are employed and giving back info to a director/customer, and your employment by that person is the team, and so you and customer are the 'We'?
The reason why I ask is because it would help to know what possibilities your project could extend out to.
For example, maybe your actual employer might be willing to pay for a Titan RTX, which would give you 24GB of VRam to work with.
Or if it is only you and your hardware as the 'We', you might want to steer more towards scene level maximization, as opposed to hardware maximization.
Or, if dealing with other software, the vegetation in iClone may not be worth worrying about, because it could be added in later in an external rendering environment.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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i using a titan x with 12 giga vram and is noth enough for some projects. if i use 4k textures. i forced to work with 2k textures with 12 giga of vram. the same scene on unity with 4k textures. get some like 2/3 giga vram and unity deal with like a breeze. Rene jacob say me iclone dont deal at a inteligent way with textures. its nothing new for me, iclone dont deal a inteligent way with many things. but the fact is mixing many technologys on the same pack i undestand how hard it can be, so for today i undestand and be happy how iclone deal actual with all this realtime techs thogeter.
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By AutoDidact - 5 Years Ago
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wildstar (5/28/2019)
i using a titan x with 12 giga vram and is noth enough for some projects. if i use 4k textures. i forced to work with 2k textures with 12 giga of vram. the same scene on unity with 4k textures. get some like 2/3 giga vram and unity deal with like a breeze. Rene jacob say me iclone dont deal at a inteligent way with textures. its nothing new for me, iclone dont deal a inteligent way with many things. but the fact is mixing many technologys on the same pack i undestand how hard it can be, so for today i undestand and be happy how iclone deal actual with all this realtime techs thogeter.
Why make your life harder?? 4K textures can only be viewed in "4K" on a display device that has 4K resolution. Now, after you have added your Bloom,Motion blur and depth of field no one will notice your "4K" details anyway so they dont contribute to storytelling/Narrative And BTW.... Humans dont actually "see" in 4K it is a medical fact.
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By TonyDPrime - 5 Years Ago
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AD, one reason to use 4K is that the geography of the viewed texture over a 4K map is not always a straight 4096 x 4096.
For example, take the eyebrows of a CC3 face. Now at 4K, the eyebrows as part of a 4K texture map may only themselves amount to a 150 x 600 pixel area of that 4K size (just as an example). Meaning, that any closeup is at best, even at 4K, 150 x 600. By the logic that 1080p screen = needing only 2K, 2048 x 2048, max, now the eyebrows would only be 75 x 300 pixels.
So, which would you rather see if zooming in on eyebrows on a 1080p screen, 150 x 600, or 75 x 300...see?
Now yes, the memory usage will be a price you pay, but you do stand to gain visual fidelity for smaller parts of the whole entire 4096 x 4096 texture.
Because a 1920 x 1080 screen will eclipse both 150x600, and a respective 2K’s 75x300.
Unreal has LOD for this reason, to help max the display potential while balancing in the moment need / tax on ‘system resources ‘
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By AutoDidact - 5 Years Ago
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So, which would you rather see if zooming in on eyebrows on a 1080p screen, 150 x 600, or 75 x 300...see? Now yes, the memory usage will be a price you pay, Now yes, the memory usage will be a price you pay,
I would rather see good pacing and proper cinematic shot framing and well timed camera cuts during dialog & action.
..oh and a decent genre appropriate soundtrack /Score
90 minutes of True 4k video requires 477gigbytes of data. This is not an efficient use of resources.
If people want to sit and count eyebrow pixels on a screen there are plenty is still Image galleries for them to obsess over such matters.
This has become a big problem with alot of Daz content.
One person bought an SUV truck model in the daz store and could barely render one still image on his massive titan GPU.
This was not because the undercarriage was meticulously detailed with all of the parts one finds on a real life SUV.. But because every bloody Axle, brakeline, and Differential shaft had its own 4K texture on a part
of the vehicle that no one will likely ever show in a render.
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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TonyDPrime: When I say 'We' I am speaking of my husband & I.
My husband & I are the team in this animation production. :-)
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By animagic - 5 Years Ago
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Kimmie777 (5/29/2019)
TonyDPrime: When I say 'We' I am speaking of my husband & I.
My husband & I are the team in this animation production. :-)
Since you state that you don't have any animation experience, I hope you'll keep it relatively simple at first and do things in short stretches.
I usually split the film up by scenes, where a scene is one project , up to one or two minutes in length, often less.
Also, don't fret too much about resolutions and looks in the beginning, that can come later. In actual animation productions often stand-ins are used for characters and props that are less taxing on the system.
In iClone there is a setting where you can dynamically reduce the texture resolution for real-time viewing purposes. This does not affect the physical resolution of the textures or the final rendering.
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Thank you, Animagic! You always give such wonderful sound advice.
And although this may sound nuts, we are just diving in to the real thing as the real thing.
We are here to animate out the 4 Gospel books of the Bible all together and in chronological order.
It will be 34 episodes when complete. And that is the only reason we are even here. :-)
It is to be 100% pure Scriptures with nothing omitted out and nothing embellished in.
This will be a very special film production.
And right now, I am the only one who can do this. So I need to do it.
(That is not only because of copyright reasons, but also also because of the many thousands of hours needed to get to this point that started about 16 years ago.
To solve the chronology puzzles of the 4 Gospel books together and then to turn it into an absolutely perfect and amazing screenplay many years later... It's been a long road. :-) )
The 1st episode needs to be done as well as the last episode. No practice rounds; no do-overs. This is it for us.
But we got this... We have some really awesome and very kind animation friends on here who have made tutorials for us and who are only an e-mail away if we get stuck.
(Plus you guys on the forum whenever you are on here. :-) )
~ Kimmie
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By TonyDPrime - 5 Years Ago
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AutoDidact (5/29/2019)
So, which would you rather see if zooming in on eyebrows on a 1080p screen, 150 x 600, or 75 x 300...see? Now yes, the memory usage will be a price you pay, Now yes, the memory usage will be a price you pay,
I would rather see good pacing and proper cinematic shot framing and well timed camera cuts during dialog & action.
..oh and a decent genre appropriate soundtrack /Score
90 minutes of True 4k video requires 477gigbytes of data. This is not an efficient use of resources.
If people want to sit and count eyebrow pixels on a screen there are plenty is still Image galleries for them to obsess over such matters.
This has become a big problem with alot of Daz content.
One person bought an SUV truck model in the daz store and could barely render one still image on his massive titan GPU.
This was not because the undercarriage was meticulously detailed with all of the parts one finds on a real life SUV.. But because every bloody Axle, brakeline, and Differential shaft had its own 4K texture on a part
of the vehicle that no one will likely ever show in a render.
@AD
I think I would be very interested in seeing 8K textures to be honest, up that eyebrow to 300 x 1200! I like renders of big faces, so maybe this is why this would matter to me, but I think the same could apply for a tiled map on a landscape, you may get more from a higher fidelity texture. Although, I do find that ALL textures than must be high, otherwise the combo of lower res ones with higher res will make the effort not worth it (ie - a high res landscape under a pixelated sky.) True however, what you say, the average customer/viewer will not notice...or will they!? (because gamers and cinema/TV viewers are very adept these days in critiquing an overall take on visual fidelity.)
Also, great point you had, I agree with what you said earlier about maximizing resources in context of some of the effects you may use (bloom, blur, DOF, color temperature)
@Kimmie - congratulations on a project together, have fun! Animagic is a wonderful guide who always has great thoughts on completing projects.
My own personal find is that you can do things - (1) finish a project, or (2) stall infinitely for exploration of perfection's sake. So - Pick #1, you'll accomplish more!!!!
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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AutoDidact (5/28/2019)
wildstar (5/28/2019)
i using a titan x with 12 giga vram and is noth enough for some projects. if i use 4k textures. i forced to work with 2k textures with 12 giga of vram. the same scene on unity with 4k textures. get some like 2/3 giga vram and unity deal with like a breeze. Rene jacob say me iclone dont deal at a inteligent way with textures. its nothing new for me, iclone dont deal a inteligent way with many things. but the fact is mixing many technologys on the same pack i undestand how hard it can be, so for today i undestand and be happy how iclone deal actual with all this realtime techs thogeter.Why make your life harder?? 4K textures can only be viewed in "4K" on a display device that has 4K resolution. Now, after you have added your Bloom,Motion blur and depth of field no one will notice your "4K" details anyway so they dont contribute to storytelling/Narrative And BTW.... Humans dont actually "see" in 4K it is a medical fact.
My friend.... comercial renders like you use, iray, vray akjshakjshakray, etc ray... uses supersampling for textures. so you can use textures wih 512x512 for open takes , and 1k for closed takes. and you will see the detaiils like a nice skin , a nice armor, etc. inside realttime engines. you dont have supersampling for individual textures, the unique realtime engine have this feature is toolbag 3. in game engine you have mipmapping and its sux. its blur more than smoth textures. so both unreal, unity or iclone for closed takes 2k textures is the minimum acceptable for a nice look in closed takes and for superclosed takes must be 4k. its a fact. this and many other reasons make me change my workflow inside iclone. today i divide my project in little pieces just for that. change textures resolution. work all as 4k and force iclone down to 2k to work , when i need a superclose i change it for 4k. 1k textures inside ANY game engine not just iclone make you work looks bad. maybe that you think the unique solution for your work look good is use external render, or like other guy says "real 3d render" or something bullshit like that.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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and about uses 4k renders, is not about the television or monitor ppl uses to see your work online. its about compression, the unique way to fight against the
high compression used on online video players is increasing your resolution. this work very well for 2d videos , for 360 videos this problem (compression) totally destroy 360 videos forcing you use 4k + for 360 renders. i will start produce interactive content for oculus very soon, and the exigences for interactive videos as APPs its the minimum 4k, and recomended 8k. and the phone display dont have this resolution.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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..... and! about i using many bloom or many dof on my works, who talk that, dont show me refereces as animation works i can see as good refereces. so...
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Thank you, Tony.
We will not be stalling, but it does need to be done right.
~ Kimmie
P.S.: Posting our website links here below for anyone who would like more information about this production:
The basics of info about our film production:
www.TrackingJESUS.net/Productions
My book that the film set is based off of:
www.TrackingJESUS.net
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By justaviking - 5 Years Ago
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Reiterating what Animagic said... Please start simple. I know you want the first Gospel to be as well done as the last Gospel, but it is unrealistic to expect your FIRST PROJECT to be as good as your tenth project. So you need to practice. At the very least, I am certain you will go back and update or refresh your early projects because your skills and knowledge will increase as your continue working in iClone.
About "4k textures"... As was mentioned, a 4k texture is not the same as a 4k image that fills the screen. For a piece of clothing, the entire outfit probably fills one texture, so a button or an employee's name on a work shirt only gets a very small portion of that texture. Thus, if you do a close-up and you want the buttons and the embroidered name to be clear (not blurry or pixelated), then you need a high-resolution texture so you have plenty of pixels for the button and the name.
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By AutoDidact - 5 Years Ago
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My friend.... comercial renders like you use, iray, vray akjshakjshakray, etc ray... uses supersampling for textures. so akjshakjshakray, etc ray... uses supersampling for textures. so you can use textures wih 512x512 for open takes , and 1k for you can use textures wih 512x512 for open takes , and 1k for closed takes. and you will see the detaiils like a nice skin , a closed takes. and you will see the detaiils like a nice skin , a nice armor, etc. inside realttime engines. you dont have nice armor, etc. inside realttime engines. you dont have supersampling for individual textures, the unique realtime supersampling for individual textures, the unique realtime engine have this feature is toolbag 3. in game engine you have engine have this feature is toolbag 3. in game engine you have mipmapping and its sux. its blur more than smoth textures. so mipmapping and its sux. its blur more than smoth textures. so both unreal, unity or iclone for closed takes 2k textures is the both unreal, unity or iclone for closed takes 2k textures is the minimum acceptable for a nice look in closed takes and for minimum acceptable for a nice look in closed takes and for superclosed takes must be 4k.superclosed takes must be 4k. Hi Athos Thank you for clarifying one of the major reasons I wont use a game engine for movie production. Your numbers are quite accurate. In this still frame from my movie, the Colonels Skin is 1024x1024 with normal maps for his skin "detail" it was originally 4k from Daz however I run a script in Daz studio to reduce it before exporting the .obj/MDD to Maxon Cinema4D. I typicly only keep the skins from Daz and replace the non- organics like metals,concrete etc with the native procedrual textures of C4D that do not use Maps at All As a sci fi fan I typically create scenes with multiple Character and hundreds of scene objects. You you are correct, I can not afford to have a 4K texture on every item in my dense scenes It is ironic that most Daz content will have a 4K texture on everything for still render portrait artists who use that dumb brute force path tracer, IRay for pin girls etc in Daz studio. Yet you need 4K for Good real time close ups in Unity/Unreal etc.for a viewing audience that likely wont have 4K TV or computer monitor ...at least not yet. We all have our different technical approaches to animated filmaking. However in the end Good story telling an filmmaking principles ar what makes good movies.
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By wildstar - 5 Years Ago
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AutoDidact (5/29/2019)
My friend.... comercial renders like you use, iray, vray akjshakjshakray, etc ray... uses supersampling for textures. so akjshakjshakray, etc ray... uses supersampling for textures. so you can use textures wih 512x512 for open takes , and 1k for you can use textures wih 512x512 for open takes , and 1k for closed takes. and you will see the detaiils like a nice skin , a closed takes. and you will see the detaiils like a nice skin , a nice armor, etc. inside realttime engines. you dont have nice armor, etc. inside realttime engines. you dont have supersampling for individual textures, the unique realtime supersampling for individual textures, the unique realtime engine have this feature is toolbag 3. in game engine you have engine have this feature is toolbag 3. in game engine you have mipmapping and its sux. its blur more than smoth textures. so mipmapping and its sux. its blur more than smoth textures. so both unreal, unity or iclone for closed takes 2k textures is the both unreal, unity or iclone for closed takes 2k textures is the minimum acceptable for a nice look in closed takes and for minimum acceptable for a nice look in closed takes and for superclosed takes must be 4k.superclosed takes must be 4k. Hi Athos Thank you for clarifying one of the major reasons I wont use a game engine for movie production. Your numbers are quite accurate. In this still frame from my movie, the Colonels Skin is 1024x1024 with normal maps for his skin "detail" it was originally 4k from Daz however I run a script in Daz studio to reduce it before exporting the .obj/MDD to Maxon Cinema4D. I typicly only keep the skins from Daz and replace the non- organics like metals,concrete etc with the native procedrual textures of C4D that do not use Maps at All As a sci fi fan I typically create scenes with multiple Character and hundreds of scene objects. You you are correct, I can not afford to have a 4K texture on every item in my dense scenes It is ironic that most Daz content will have a 4K texture on everything for still render portrait artists who use that dumb brute force path tracer, IRay for pin girls etc in Daz studio. Yet you need 4K for Good real time close ups in Unity/Unreal etc.for a viewing audience that likely wont have 4K TV or computer monitor ...at least not yet. We all have our different technical approaches to animated filmaking. However in the end Good story telling an filmmaking principles ar what makes good movies.
thx for your education , and sorry, sometimes i get really pissed, and use strong words. so dont get me so serius when i use wors like FU* and bullshit
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Thank you, Just a Viking. I do appreciate your feedback. :-)
But we will work as hard as we need to in order to get it done right and of good quality the 1st time.
We don't want inconsistencies in the DVDs.
But please don't misunderstand me: We are not trying to compete with Pixar.
They may have a million dollar studio, but we have quality of content. :-)
It needs to be smooth and have no issues in it from the very beginning.
The differences from the very 1st episode will be very small going to the very last episode.
But we will be asking questions to you guys along the way. :-)
~ Kimmie
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By ultimativity - 5 Years Ago
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Wow, thanks for this advice for iClone animation. I brought some characters in from Daz; using them as avatars but they consume lots of memory. I have an elaborate backyard with house that also takes up memory. If I set that up in Daz or Blender and join everything, then import through 3DX, as one piece of geometry, you are saying this will help with memory?
Also what do you mean by converting avatars to animated props?
Thanks,
Nathan
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By Kimmie777 - 5 Years Ago
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Avatars in the background work great as billboard props as long as you render them on the highest quality levels.
* Lesser quality on rendering would probably be OK if they are far out in the background.
It saves huge on memory!
You won't be able to do play-back with several tracks going, so just do test render videos to see how the animation is coming along.
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