Interior Animations

In general one of these two pipelines should work:

Important note: All previzes, previews and final animations should be shared with the HOD of VFX and Animation (currently Milko Stoev). Thank you!

It is important to note that without an animation exclusive render farm we can't afford to render full-res, final quality sequences at each stage and we should strive to keep this to a minimum. Therefor draft(s) before the Final should be rendered at half-res (720p in most cases) and  lower quality settings 1-2k LC samples, 1-8 / 1-16 AA and higher noise thresholds. 

To be able to have more creative cameras and framing there are a few things to keep in mind when designing and styling sets for animations:

• Finish architecture behind camera

• Props on empty walls behind camera (could be just a door, a chair, a plant, some frames on a wall)

• Extra windows, either for lighting or framing should 'make sense'

3D PRODUCTION:

Depending on whether your scene is a COPY or if your animation is in the LIFESTYLE scene the location of the 3D scene will vary.  We should try to have the animation cameras in the same scenes as the lifestyle stills. This will save time in the future when we do rehashes or when changes that would affect the animation are made on the stills.

In the case of a copy, please put it in a sub-folder:

2D PRODUCTION: 

The 2D Production folder structure should look similar to this no matter if the 3D scene is a copy or not.

Premiere edits go into 00_EDITS.

TyPreview MP4s should also be in the EDITS folder, however the default path is the Scene Path, it is a bit annoying to change on every camera so this one is forgiven if left at default.

To speed up the process and have near-realtime playback performance in the viewport the scenes will have to be optimized prior to animation.

• Turbosmooth and Opensubdiv Viewport subdivisions should be switched to Render subdivisions.

• Work in Performance or in the presence of transparent hero objects (a shower screen for example) Standard shading modes.

• Clean up out of scene objects and hidden objects which might hinder performance.

• Optimize viewport display of ForestPack onjects.

• Make sure there aren't animated objects without helpers which will later 'jump' in and out of view.

• Wash your hands.

For Interior Animations we use VM_CameraControl: drive.google.com/file/d/13OJD7JEil0UXl_SAC2hKn9uy2199lJqJ/view?usp=sharing 

It significantly speeds up realistic camera move creation. A quick demo can be seen above (may need to open it in new tab).

NOTE: DO NOT copy the Camera Rig using Max's tools. Use the Rig's built in clone function! 

NOTE: When using the 'Copy Objects to File' script to copy cameras into other scenes, make sure to choose 'Keep Layers' 

NOTE: Тry using the Continuous parameters as they allow an easier and faster keyframe-less animation.

NOTE: The tool is still in beta, if you find bugs or if you have feature requests contact Milko.

The Camera script is made with RPM in mind. It is really easy and convenient to setup your scene as a shot per pass and have a separate camera for each as usual, then only adjust the frame ranges and link the UI Time-range.

The goal of the Previz is to focus on camera moves, composition, framing, tempo and general flow of the animation. Therefore we use the Performance view to cut distractions. For exporting Previz cameras from 3Ds Max we use TyPreview with the following settings:

NOTE: TyPreview Presets can be found here General and a Transparency  versions. 

We import the MP4s in Premiere, create a Sequence then rearrange, trim and cut our shots. Then we export the ready to share Previz. 

NOTE: Multiple Sequences with the same or different versions of the clips can live within the same Premier Project file. 

Do not create a new Premiere Project file for every Previz version! Use Bin folders to stay organized.

• Render at half-res (720p)

• 1000 LC subdivs

• 2 LC Retrace

• 1-8 AA

• 0.02 CLR TRESH

• 0.01 NOISE TRESH

• VRAY HAS BEEN UPDATED, THOSE SETTINGS ARE SLIGHTLY MISLEADING

• PLEASE STAND BY UNTIL WIKI GETS UPDATED. UNTIL THEN IF IN DOUBT ASK MILKO, ZDRAVKO, GEORGI, TONI, BORIS

• Render at full resolution

• 3000min LC subdivs

• 4-6 LC Retrace

• 1-16 / 1-24 AA

• 0.012 CLR TRESH

• 0.006 - 0.008 NOISE TRESH

These are general settings. Your experience may vary.

• VFB - OFF

• Distributed Rendering - OFF

• Force Workstation - OFF

• Restart Renderer Between Frames - ON

• Ignore missing Plugins, Maps, DLLs, and anything else - ON

• Remove Padding - OFF

• Enable Local Rendering - OFF

• Override Job Error Limit - ON : 15

• Override Task Error Limit - ON: 10

• Submit as suspended - ON

RPM SETTINGS SCRIPT

Georgy has written a script which sets those settings for you: RPM CUSTOM ROLLOUT 

also available here: R:\01_3DSMAX_SHARED\MAX2020\VM_SCRIPTS 

The script once ran, the script can be found in the Custom Rollout of RPM and is PER PASS. 

Due to RPM being stubborn you still have to double check and make sure that the settings are indeed set to their correct values.