Hello everyone, this text file is of a highly technical nature, and could get very boring for non technical people, so feel free to stop reading if you don't like that kind of stuff. However, if you do like 3D technical things and are familiar with the Vue 5 Infinite and Poser 3D products, I hope it will be an interesting read. You will find here a serie of remarks and considerations about the making of this mini-movie (or should I say nano-movie), that could not go into the Making Of video because of space, complexity, time allowed, etc. First, I want to point out that X-RIDE 2 is a one-man hobbyist work, not a professional one. There are many glitches and some quality problems I am perfectly aware of. Please be also aware that it has been done entirely with powerful but low-cost software (compared to high-end 3D software packages). I apologize also for any mistake you may find in my text, as my first language is french, not english. I live 30 kms south-east of Paris, France. ============================================================== That being said, here are some general and technical remarks : 1) Some figures --------------- - I used Poser 6 SR1, and Vue 5 Infinite (V5i) build 278365. - The project represents 35 GB of data, and 5000 rendered HD Video frames. - I was limited in what I could do by the memory problems of V5i. Even with a lot of ram remaining, I encountered countless 'resource' shortages. So that was quit and load again, until the next one. I used layers, hide some objects, used every trick except one : I could not turn off OpenGL, as I needed to visualize possibilities of collisions between trees and the X-Wings. I also 'cut the link' between imported Poser objects (X-Wings, AT-AT, AT-ST, rock formation) and Poser by ungrouping/regrouping and saving them as .VOB objects (V5i format). This frees some resources. However, it was not possible with models already animated in Poser, like the Sea Dragons. That being said, Vue 5 Infinite is a unique software in its ability to manipulate landscape scenes with millions of 'intelligent instances' and billions of polygons. I can't think of another software package which is remotely comparable to V5i in that matter. - I used two EcoSystems on two terrains (duplicates). One had the trees, one the grass. I needed the grass to grow everywhere, but I had to make a passage for the X-Wings in the EcoSystem trees. That's why I used two EcoSystems : you can't activate the 'Decay near foreign object' for one type of object/plant and not for another in the same EcoSystem. 'Decay near foreign object' is the option I used to grow trees around primitives to draw the path. - With the trees EcoSystem, I was already at 12 billion polygons. With the grass EcoSystem at 100% density, I was at 20 billion polygons. V5i simply could not render the scene and crashed, no matter what I tried. I then lowered the grass density at 95%. Then it could render on the main machine, but it invariably crashed in network rendering. As I absolutely needed network rendering, I had to find the sweet spot, which was at 92% density and 16 billion polygons. So the grass here is a real killer, but if you have watched X-RIDE 1, I think you will appreciate it in X-RIDE 2 :) 2) Network rendering -------------------- - I rendered in TGA format with the 'generate temporary frames' option checked, so as not to lose everything in case of a big crash. TGA is easily imported in VirtualDub, a very useful and fast utility to encode AVI files from image sequences. - It was a great test for network rendering. Sometimes I had two scenes rendering at the same time. One half of the renderfarm was managed by the Dual Opteron, the other by the Dual Xeon. These two servers served also as rendercows for the other scene simultaneously, without problem. For the EcoSystems scenes (the main Run), I had to add the cows one at a time in the HyperVue manager to avoid crashes. Only when one cow had gotten all the scene and textures and begun a render could I add another cow. It was that tight. - A good thing is, the rendercows need a lot less memory than the server. 1 GB of RAM per cow was required for this project, but it was sufficient. And I had no crash during a HyperVue render. I could disconnect cows during the render at any time without problem, the missing frames were re-rendered at the end. Unfortunately, the same bad or missing frame is assigned to all the machines at the same time at the end, which is not efficient. A more detailed explanation follows : Say you have a 100 frames shot, and during the render there are problems on the frames 25, 48, 57 and 65. At the end of the rendering (after frame 100 is finished), the missing frames are re-allocated, but 25 is allocated to every PC, then 48 is allocated to every PC, then 57, etc. So, if one machine is faster than the others (in that case the Dual core Opteron), it will finish 25 before the others, then gets 48. When the other cows finish 25, they are also given 48, but as the Opteron will finish 48 before them anyway and then get 57, their rendering time is useless. What happens is that the fastest machine does all the missing frames on its own at the end. It would be much more efficient to allocate each of the missing frames to a different machine, like what happens during the normal render. 3) Rendering times ------------------ - I really wish for a 64 bit version of V5i. The software already uses multithreading very well, so that, for example, on a dual opteron 275 the 4 cores are used at 100%. A 64 bit version would probably remove many memory limitations and really free the software for even more complex scenes. - I was amazed at the differences in render times between some sequences. In the space scenes, typical render times per frame were under one minute. Of course in space there is almost nothing (and no one hears you rendering :) But with EcoSystems or water scenes it was often 30 mns to 1 hour per frame on a very powerful machine. - I used broadcast mode with global illumination boost at -2.0 because it was a good compromise between quality and speed. I tried high user settings with different antialiasing quality, just to be sure, but the rendering times were astronomical. One hour per frame is already too long to be reasonable, but at least it was manageable with a renderfarm, but six hours a frame, forget it... The drawback is : there is a small amount of flickering in some sequences. Well, I can live with it. I prefer a good quality in full screen than a perfect quality in a small window. However this is a subjective opinion, and it is perfectly legitimate to prefer the opposite. If this is your case, too bad :) 4) Miscellaneous ---------------- - For video editing, I used Video Deluxe 2006 Plus from Magix. An amazing program, with professional features for a very small price. I imported all the sequences in AVI uncompressed format. Some sounds and many background musics are from the Magix Sound Pool collection. Other sounds were found on the internet, often reworked with Nero Wave Editor. Sound is very important to the general mood, I hope it is varied and attractive enough in the animation as well as in the Making Of. - Don't ask me where I found the names Cethlic and Ksham Zendorn. They just popped up in my head. I am quite familiar with the Star Wars expanded universe. I just thought they sounded good, and I hope that people familiar with this universe will appreciate some references. Thanks to J.Hoagland and mrsparky for providing free Star Wars models and texture, and silverblade33 for the planet textures. The AT-ST and Blockade Runner are available at JCH Digital Designs. You can find all their web sites in the animation and Making Of credits. - I like sea monsters. They were not the main subject of the animation, but I was happy to put some in. Some day I hope to do something based on sea creatures. - It is much more comfortable to use a renderfarm in winter than in summer ! OK, you can wake up I've finished :) I've probably forgotten many things, but in that case I will edit this file from time to time. Thanks for reading this ! If you have any comment you can send them to renderfred@free.fr. Frederic Louguet November 2005