animation help - this look shocking

[Wheelsofsteel]

Hi All

I have been working on a project over the last couple of weeks preparing model and drawings for a Capex proposal for new plant.

now I have been doing some animation of the equipement in action. but when I output the files to a movie it come out bad

I even tried to output with photo render, and it either crashed Creo running out of memeory, or comes out looking like the image below.

it looks fuzzy and out of focus.

Can anyone help with pointers and tutorials on rendering and animations.

THank you

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[TomD.inPDX]

I think PhotoRender is crippled to help sell PhotoLux. I don't use it.

You need the larger frame and I like using shaded with reflections; turning the options for higher quality graphics; removng the shade on the floor (just maintain reflections where applicable) and avoid perspective due to the poor control over saved perspective views. I am also careful with feature appearance changes since it removes the ability to use the animation transarency feature. One overall color must be assigned to have the transparency work in animations.

Even for mechaism animations only, I try to use these guidelines.

You should be able to get this level of quality without too much issue:

Note the wavyness of the shadows....

[Wheelsofsteel]

Thank you for the advice

your suggestions made an improvement , and I think I can use the output now.

I expected that the basic package should render an animation better than what it is doing now.

[TomD.inPDX · Accepted solution]

... that makes two of us

And before you run into the issue... I already reported this, but you cannot get actual 1920 x 1080 frame size. Even if this is what is shows in the dialog, it doesn't come out that way. However, 1440 x 720 does. I got the "works to specifications" from R&D even though it doesn't actually work

One option you might like is outputting the animation to images instead. You can make animated GIFs with PhotoScape. Sometimes this works well for short clips that you want to include in presentations. PhotoScape is free and allows you to make changes to the images in batch mode including image size "corrections". Just another tool in the toolbox

http://www.photoscape.org/

Click on the image...

Animated GIF provides great control over looping when you mechanism animation stops in the same place it starts. You simply discard the very 1st image (since it is the same as the last) and you get a perfect loop.

[vmráz]

Great idea with a GIF animation.

I have a small tip for creating animation loop.

The last frame shoudn´t be same like the first one. If you do like thise, than you have 2 same pictures in a row (last one and first one of next loop). Therefore GIF (or other animation) looks like stopped for a short time. Check GIF above.

Better way: Last picture of animation is one step less than the first one ---> if you do like thise than last picture goes slightly into first picture of next loop.

It´s just a cosmetic tip...

[TomD.inPDX]

Right, that was the comment below the image. It is a catch 22 where it is easy to have a mechanism cycle one full cycle stopping where it started, but when you make a looping movie, you can always tell where that loop starts and ends. Movies conversions are not exactly frame based anyway and therefore the seam is even more notable in most cases.

If you try to run GIFs too fast, they too will have artifacts. Although I dropped the 1st image, it still has a minor random stutter. It is not consistent if you watch it carefully. You can slow down the animation and it runs flawlessly but you can see the frames. A .01 second delay in PhotoScape seems to have a bug... it ignores it. A .02 second delay is 30 fps and that is what the animation is. A .03 second delay is likely optimal from a processing point of view.

[Wheelsofsteel]

Thanks for the tip, I never thought about trying to output stills and creating a GIF file, will give it a go today.

Yesterday, I outputted the base models into wavefront format (.obj) and then took the file home and tried to load into my 3d animation set up at home, which is Daz3d 4.6 , hexagon, bryce, and Unity.

I could load the file into Hexagon and convert it to Daz3d format, I can create an animation in it or switch to Unity, I will experiment this weekend.

I know I can get good out put from those two package with animation.

[TomD.inPDX]

True animation and rendering packages can really up the game when you already have good 3D models.

Not something I have an eye for, though.

Good luck with your presentation.

[Wheelsofsteel]

I have saved the rendered animation output as JPEG images and then used your recommendation for the software to create a gif file, the outputed file is excellent, this will do.

The best solution using the standard software....

Thanks Antonius

[TomD.inPDX]

You are very welcome.