Roller Coaster

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Finis
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Roller Coaster

Post by Finis »

An entry for the Scary challenge.

https://vid.me/x2hSU
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Re: Roller Coaster

Post by Draise »

Nice, you're using Vidme. I too. It's a small community, but I like the policy and philosophy behind more than Youtubes.
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Re: Roller Coaster

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That was practice and learning. Now I'm making the production coaster track. It is based on a curve. The track is an array of objects that follow the curve. The camera, coaster car, and passenger movement follows the curve too. Making that curve is tricky. Each control point has a property called tilt. That is needed to make banked curves in the track. Tilt is hard to control since modifications to curves, like connecting them with join + make segment, changes things in unexpected ways. I'll manually adjust keyframes to faster and slower movement.

I think using physics to move the cars would be interesting. Might try that in the future.


@Draise Thanks for the Vidme upvote and comment. Yep, Vidme has some good stuff. It needs a good bit of improvements, added features, and there some things I don't like but it might be going in a good direction. Their player for embeds needs a lot of work ... not usable imo.
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Re: Roller Coaster

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Frustrating. I made several bezier curves with the curve tools. Especially spirals. Then I put them together with Join followed by Make Segment. That messed up the segments between control points and the twisting is all changed. Not enough trouble. I modeled a section of roller coaster track and applied an array modifier and curve modifier. That should duplicate the track section and fit the duplicates to the bezier curve like it did in the practice one. No luck. The track array is in a seemingly random place, oriented strangely, and does not follow the curve. Same with a cylinder instead of the complex track object.

A trueSpace tool I'd like to see in Blender is the way an object's origin (TS axis) is moved. TS let you drag it anywhere you want or be precise with the numerical panel. Blender has some tools for that and you can use snap to cursor but TS was better.

Blender 2.78
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Re: Roller Coaster

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That would make a pretty scary ride. Very nice Finis
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Re: Roller Coaster

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Thanks Dragneye.

Tests show that the special ritual to get the objects to follow the curve is to be sure the objects' origins are all located on the same point on the curve. Otherwise the object is offset from the curve in a difficult way and produces unexpected results. I think it is advantageous to use the first point of the curve or have the curve's origin be at that point. Easier if the point where everything starts is the global origin.

When joining multiple curves be sure they are all beziers (change if needed on the "T" panel) and set the tilt to "z up" on the object panel for each before joining. I think you should select all the control points before "z up". After using Make Segment delete a point on one end of the new segment. Deleting one or the other point will clean up the extra detail Make Segment adds. For loops and banked curves I will probably manually adjust the tilt for each control point.

The track is an object repeated with an Array modifier and fitted to the curve with a Curve modifier. The car and camera will follow the curve with a Follow Curve constraint. The base track object is a set of objects connected by parenting. It could probably be Boooooleaned (ha ha Steinie).

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Re: Roller Coaster

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Who has successfully made a video for Vidme with Blender? I mean the video came directly from Blender as an avi or mp4 or other video format, uploaded to Vidme, successfully processed there, and would play there. What render/video settings do you use?

I have to use Hitfilm on the Blender made video to make Vidme happy. For quick demos I'd prefer to go directly from Blender.

The current simple scene takes 5.18 seconds per frame with low res cycles. For a 3 minute 30 fps 720 video that approaches 8 hours render time. It is 2 to 3 seconds per frame with Blender internal. Haven't got 2.79 yet which has EV render?
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Re: Roller Coaster

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I would contact Tiles. I bet he might know the answers.
Great to see you starting to use Blender. It was always something you wanted to do.
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Re: Roller Coaster

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I have used Blender and other systems to make videos for Vidme. Anything that can work on Youtube works on Vidme. Just render out an MP4 with H.264 codec at target 6000mbps, a default. Looks ok. I would typically target 16000 with a min of 8000 max 24000, or even target 24000 with min 16000 and max 32000, but that is television production export quality, which will be a very large file. Aspect ratio at 16:9 are best, 30fps progressive and any 1280x720, 1920x1080 or there abouts resolution.

Concerning cycles, I would highly recommend rendering ONLY to *.PNG files incase one frame errors, you can render that frame out and fix it. I also highly recommend you use the Denoiser function from 2.79. Saves a third to 50% of the time for not bad results.
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Re: Roller Coaster

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Thanks Steinie. Once Blender gets into your brain a little and you have the basics of how to navigate and where stuff is it is good. Some tools, like collision not working with hair, need improvement but they are usable. I'm sure knowledge and experience will help. I'm surprised since it is open source that people don't fix or improve the existing tools.

Draise to the rescue! Denoiser, yes. For finished products I'll do stills like you said. Videos for tests. So that's mpeg4 and h.264 on the Render Panel - Encoding section. What about the thing in the Output section next to BW/RGB? What would you select there for video file output?
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