United3dArtists

candy cane striped mummies - hmmm
ufo's blending as holiday lights...

a windup key acting as a kinetic force unraveling traps and tracks

as pages fall from a paper calendar with no holding, the event horizon distorts an analog clock running backward and forwards with distorted clock face and hands all the while light escapes to a destination and departure at the same time

evoking curved Mobius strip space whose ribbon dissects reality into a stepped pattern of random of light/dark

the consistent and inconsistent silent drum beat which is seen but not heard

a conduit of nothingness evolving into a railroad track without perspective

finally, a shoe drops and the scene goes to credits

jamesmc wrote: ↑23 Jun 2019, 13:03a conduit of nothingness evolving into a railroad track without perspective

Poetry! It is something a narrator would say at the start of a film noir.

Very cool animation Finis. Dark atmosphere, I like. Like the logo as well!

Thanks Mikom. I'm thinking about making another version sometime. I want the glowing objects to light the fog, trees, and ground a little. Problem: It would take eons to render with cycles using enough samples for fog effect in the light. Eevee doesn't cast light from emissive materials. Also it doesn't do area lights well. Blender 2.8 beta. Maybe that will improve in future versions. So I am left with putting a point light inside the glowing objects to light the trees etc. Problem: how to make that light ignore the glow objects? I'll probably composite two movies together to do it. One with point lights illuminating the environment and no glows. The other with just the glows.

The master of logos likes my logo!

you can add some effects in post... in after effects or hitfilm (express)

Carrara can eliminate the light source, can shine the light on specified objects or ignore objects.

I know you are not using Carrara but figured some talented person could write a script since these are Camera attributes.

I discovered that the glow object is not illuminated by any lights but there are shadows. It only has an emission node and stuff to generate the procedural texture but no diffuse or glossy or other to receive light. I've found no eevee way to stop the shadows just for the glow object.

No problem. I'll make a movie with a point light or two moving in place of the object. That will illuminate the environment and fog as I want. Then another movie with just the mysterious object to overlay. I may need a mask movie too.

With 1000 samples cycles took about 3 minutes for one frame and I estimate at least 3000 samples to get good light in fog effects. Much faster without the fog of course. Cycles doesn't look the way I want for this anyway. Too real.

Yeah post production fx could do good stuff and it would be a good thing to play with and learn.

The original animation does add mystery and strangeness. Since the mystery object doesn't interact normally with the surroundings it is like James' poetry. It simultaneously is and is not there.

Here are the material nodes for the animated glow. The distortion is keyframed between -5 and +5.

Too much trouble to fix the lighting problem on my ufo animation with compositing. Shouldn't be that way anyway. Controlling shadows is a normal part of CG and rendering software that shouldn't be missing from B2.8 or eevee. So I'll fix this when the shadows work right in eevee. I see that there was once a "shadow mode" material setting that included "none" and worked but that is now missing.

@Dragneye, Good thoughts and suggestions for the Christmas video. Most are for another story but still helpful for this one since they inspire ideas and might become future video Christmas cards. Good point about it not being so Christmasy. I think the presents, tree, decorations, gift wrap, etc. when seen will give a secular Christmas vibe but the religious/spiritual aspects could use more attention. The action story line isn't so Christmasy either but it will amuse some recipients and I learn animation.

Who wants free trueSpace manuals? You pay shipping. viewtopic.php?p=54836#p54836

Pretty cool exterior idea. Nice anim.

Thanks Dragneye!

I have an MSI gtx 1060 gaming X and a used Zotac gtx 1070 ti amp. I planned to get another used 1070 ti amp on ebay then sell my 1060 there. I found a good deal. Arrived just 2 days later. Not a ti though. Reviewed the item listing and it didn't say it was a ti. Looks like there are amp editions that aren't ti's. New plan, sell the 1060 and 1070 and get another 1070 ti amp.