Character Animation

# 1 12-05-2010 , 12:30 PM

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Location: Northampton

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Has anyone used Mental Ray for character animation and is it considered a viable option say over vray?
Thanks

It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion

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# 2 12-05-2010 , 03:36 PM

The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: London

Posts: 2,381

is your question back to front? i don't know anyone who has used vray for a character animation.

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# 3 12-05-2010 , 05:14 PM

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Well I have been looking for tutorials for character animation setup in mental ray and there doesnt seem to be anything about.
So I take it you can save out the calculated light maps per frame, then load these up to render the final animation as you do in Vray.

Whats your work flow?

It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion

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# 4 12-05-2010 , 06:03 PM

The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: London

Posts: 2,381

ummm... light maps, i'm not sure what those are. Is it a low poly game thing, like baking lights?

my workflow... well, if i was animating a character (lets say a robot walking around on a table.) I would film a move around a desk. then matchmove the plate.
using a grey ball and chrome ball for reference i would create lights to match the lighting in the scene. i would then create some proxy geometry of the table and whatever else was needed. then i would import my rigged character and animate the walk.
Next i would work on shading and texturing. once i was happy with that i would render various passes and try to comp the robot onto the backplate adding things like dof, motion blur, pixelate bits and bobs etc etc.
i would do it in mental ray... i've never used vray but i guess it would all be the same process but with different buttons.

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# 5 13-05-2010 , 12:36 AM

yes...you dont sound not non double negative
Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Norfolk, VA

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when using gi, definitely bake out gi maps or fg maps. this way it will be flicker free.
thre is an option in the render setting tabs to write out lightmap files.

and use .map format for textures if you can.

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# 6 13-05-2010 , 11:40 AM

The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: London

Posts: 2,381

I wouldn't light an anim with fg. you can use and occlusion pass for the contact shadows and you will have much more control over the lights if you do it manually. HDRI can give you artifacts that are not wanted.

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