Mike if you have the opportunity to create one for me it would be greatly appreciated

Looney Theater

email:clooney01@gmail.com


On it's way...

hi all new here:
i followed a link here from avforums and have read right through this thread and seen some great intros. I had a go myself but i couldn't get it right.
Would be much appreciated if you could send me one please mike.

Pauls Home Cinema

In High Definition





thanks in advance

paul

hi all new here:
i followed a link here from avforums and have read right through this thread and seen some great intros. I had a go myself but i couldn't get it right.
Would be much appreciated if you could send me one please mike.

Pauls Home Cinema

In High Definition





thanks in advance

paul


Hi Paul,

I assume you just need a blender file and can render yourself?

Mike

Mike, on average how long does it take you to render a file on your machine? I'm curious because it would take my machine 38 hours to render the Fox Style intro that was floating around on AVS. Granted I have an older machine with 2000+ AMD with 1GB RAM. Or maybe you have some suggestions on how to speed this process up. Thanks in advance for any input.

Mike, on average how long does it take you to render a file on your machine? I'm curious because it would take my machine 38 hours to render the Fox Style intro that was floating around on AVS. Granted I have an older machine with 2000+ AMD with 1GB RAM. Or maybe you have some suggestions on how to speed this process up. Thanks in advance for any input.


This file is much different than the fox file. I did a high def render of the Fox file and it took 3 days. A high def render of this file takes about 3.5 hours.

An standard def render is under an hour.

I have a Core 2 Duo 2.13. 2GB Ram.

Hi Paul,

I assume you just need a blender file and can render yourself?

Mike


yes please mike just the blender file

yes please mike just the blender file


On it's way...

thanks mike

Great job you guys, its looking better and better. The only complaint I have is something i've noticed almost from the start....When you first start out, you see the earth slowly spinning on the left of the screen...and the camera starts backing up, and its still spinning....And then it seems to stop spinning for a second or two, and then continues on again, and it makes the whole thing look unatural to me. I understand why you made it stop spinning there, but I think it would look better if it continued to spin, even just a little bit. Any chance of this being change? Or am I the only one that notices this?

Great job you guys, its looking better and better. The only complaint I have is something i've noticed almost from the start....When you first start out, you see the earth slowly spinning on the left of the screen...and the camera starts backing up, and its still spinning....And then it seems to stop spinning for a second or two, and then continues on again, and it makes the whole thing look unatural to me. I understand why you made it stop spinning there, but I think it would look better if it continued to spin, even just a little bit. Any chance of this being change? Or am I the only one that notices this?


I just doubled check my animation, and the earth is constanly spinning the whole time. most the earth rotation in the beginning comes from the movement of the camera and not the earth moving.

Adam

timdog,
You're not the only one that notices this, and in fact I posted it as something that I wanted to try to fix in one of my old files. It's actually an illusion of sorts, as the earth never does stop spinning in the animation. What happens is the camera movement tracking right just exactly matches the speed of the earth's rotation for about a second, and once the camera stops moving it looks like the earth starts rotating again.

It's basically the same effect as why we always see the same side of the moon facing the earth, as it's rotation matches up perfectly with its orbital velocity. In this case our camera is the moon, so the earth looks like it's not rotating.

Anyway, I never did get around to trying to fix it, as the fix would involve changing the camera's movement, and that's just a pain :D . Perhaps another user will tackle the problem, or maybe I'll revisit it after getting my new Pixar project worked out.

For those who are wondering, this issue would not affect MikeFalz's renders as he started from the Peerless .blend file where the camera has an entirely different movement path. Anyone using a .blend based off of my original file (which would include Atagert's derivative works) should be able to see this.

Mike,
May I impose to get a blender file from you? I have attempted on numerous occassions to no avail to make it work. I suppose I should stick with Photoshop. Theater name is Cinema Paradiso.

Many thanks
Don

Hi Mike, It would be great if you could create a blend file for me. I'll PM you with my contact info and the details. Many Thanks

Steve

Hate to say it, but reaper was right, I can't keep up with all these requests and still do the work I need to do for my business. If people want to Paypal me these, I'll do them but I simply can't keep doing this for free. Sorry!

Mike

Mike,
May I impose to get a blender file from you? I have attempted on numerous occassions to no avail to make it work. I suppose I should stick with Photoshop. Theater name is Cinema Paradiso.

Many thanks
Don

Don,

I created a file for you. PM your email.

BadlyDrawnBoy and TheenDisnye your files are on the way.

Mike

For those who are wondering, this issue would not affect MikeFalz's renders as he started from the Peerless .blend file where the camera has an entirely different movement path. Anyone using a .blend based off of my original file (which would include Atagert's derivative works) should be able to see this.

Actually, I copied the camera movement from peerless, so it is in both files. Not just yours.

Adam

Atagert,
Now that you mention it, I did go back and look at MikeFalz's sample video and the original Peerless file that I still have, and the camera motion is remarkably similar to mine. I can see the rotation stopping illusion by looking at the Indonesia area, where in my video the earth is rotated more, so it's Africa that you'll be looking at when it happens.

Anyway, I think I had this confused with Jeffczyz's render. If you go back to Jeff's sample video you'll see that the camera motion is much simpler, and just zooms out from the top of the earth with little if any sideways motion. In his file you don't get this effect at all.

It's funny how Peerless' camera movement looks so similar to what I "borrowed" from the tutorial that I found. Makes me wonder if he too got a few pointers from that same tutorial...? :D

Anyway, if anyone is going to take a shot at fixing this, please post a demo video when you're done and then post your camera IPO keys so we can all go back and edit our IPO curves. Thanks!

Do you think speeding up the earth would work, or do you think it would look like a top?

Adam

I'm not sure about just speeding up the earth. I think it rotates at a good speed as is, and no matter what you speed it up to the camera motion will slow it down in the middle of the file compared to the beginning and end. We just so happen to be at a speed where it appears to stop, but I'm sure it'd be just as noticeable if the "top" slowed down to half speed or whatever and then quickly spun up again, etc.

What could be done would be to increase the speed only during the part of the file where it appears to slow down or stop. That would be far simpler than changing the camera movement, and just might overcome the problem. With some trial and error on identifying the right frame count and the right amount of speedup I think that could be a solution. The only other thing to remember would be to change the starting rotational position of the earth so that we don't wind up in the middle of the pacific at the end of the clip.

Sounds like a good approach, do you plan on trying it?

(startrek info will be pm'd out later today!)

Definitely not trying to hijack the thread because I am getting a lot out of the Universal animation discussion.

I just rendered the attached and thought that it was kind of interesting. Comments please. This includes Rolling sea (highly stylized), search light, lightning flash and fireworks. Blender is getting fun.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/finalreva-relaxedredwithfireworks02.jpg

The reduced rez video is hosted at:

http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/?action=view&current=featuredpresentation-wavesreva.flv

zductive that's an awesome looking project. Is there more that you plan to add to it or is it mostly (conceptually at least) done? I'd imagine that your just using a text object rather than a mesh for the theater name since there don't appear to be any wacky transformations going on? If so that would make for an easily customizable intro once you're finished.

You should upload the .blend file so that we can all play with the effects you've made and expand on them. If you're interested, I created another thread last week for posting test renders and .blend files for personal projects like this.

http://www.box.net/public/otfjjxyiem

Thanks Magius
I missed the other thread. This should probably go over there.

I listed where you can pick up the blend files.
At position 500, the text is moved up to where it is easy to get to.


I would like to add some leaping dolphins or the Jaws shark at the end of this blend. Not really sure what my intention is. I neeed some audio to make this come alive and the audio part I am not good at.

Blender is fun to work with . Anyone know where I can get a good shark blend?
I found one but, he is toothless!

This file is much different than the fox file. I did a high def render of the Fox file and it took 3 days. A high def render of this file takes about 3.5 hours.

An standard def render is under an hour.

I have a Core 2 Duo 2.13. 2GB Ram.

Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll wait until I build my new machine before I take on trying to render these files.

Well let me know if you need a blender file. I'm all caught up with requests and I dont' mind doing the blender files. It's the rendering that takes a ton of time.

Mike

Mike, if you would make me a blender file that would be great!!

Hagerplex Home Theater

Mike, if you would make me a blender file that would be great!!

Hagerplex Home Theater


Sure. Just PM your email.

btw, that's a really long name to squeeze in.

How about Hagerplex Theater?

Has anyone found a better Universal Audio file other than

http://www.reelclassics.com/Gallery/music26.htm

Cheers,
Mark

Mike, I'd also like one of your Blender files. Theater name is "Carillian Cinemas". If you can do it, I'll be happy to send a Paypal donation for the trouble. Thanks.

Has anyone found a better Universal Audio file other than

http://www.reelclassics.com/Gallery/music26.htm

Cheers,
Mark


I borrowed the audio from a dvd that I had. :cool:

Mike, I'd also like one of your Blender files. Theater name is "Carillian Cinemas". If you can do it, I'll be happy to send a Paypal donation for the trouble. Thanks.


On it's way and thanks for the donation!

Mike,

Thanks so much for the file, it was perfect. I sent out a PayPal donation but have not gotten a confirmation that it went through. Let me know if it didn't get to you.

Thanks again,

Dave

Mike,

Thanks so much for the file, it was perfect. I sent out a PayPal donation but have not gotten a confirmation that it went through. Let me know if it didn't get to you.

Thanks again,

Dave


Thanks for the generous donation. It hasn't cleared yet, but it says it will on the 13th.

Mike

What should I set the render aspect ratio to in Blender so that it looks right at 16x9?! I notice there isn't a set up for that. Just 1024x768.

I followed the guide for the FOX logo and this didnt turn out so great, can someone help me. I am rather green when it comes to this sort of stuff. My video jumps or skips parts, it is not smooth or fluid when I play it back. What can I do to fix this?

What should I set the render aspect ratio to in Blender so that it looks right at 16x9?! I notice there isn't a set up for that. Just 1024x768.

1024x768 is actually a 4:3 ratio, just shows up on your screen right because the pixels are rectangular.

Sorry I can't give you the correct setting though. (not at home where Blender is installed)

Chiahead...

Thanks for the help. I actually changed the res to 852 x 480 (DVD res) and the ASpx and AspY to 1 and 1. Then I rendered some of the pregram, and it seemed to work out pretty well.

My only concern is now that, it seems the animation runs a bit too quickly. It almost needs to be slowed down by 1/3 or half. Any one have an idea how to accomplish this?! Do I have to add more segments to the camera, and less rotations to the earth so it looks right?!

Any ideas would be helpful!!

What should I set the render aspect ratio to in Blender so that it looks right at 16x9?! I notice there isn't a set up for that. Just 1024x768.



I've been using the HD option which is 16:9. If you want a faster render, you can also use NTSC and change the 720 to 852. This would give you the correct aspect ratio. (I see you're doing this)

As far as the speed goes, make sure your at 30 frames per second.

I followed the guide for the FOX logo and this didnt turn out so great, can someone help me. I am rather green when it comes to this sort of stuff. My video jumps or skips parts, it is not smooth or fluid when I play it back. What can I do to fix this?


Takes a fast machine to run these. What have you got? Are the jumps/skips consistant (always the same part) or random?

So, if I rendered at 60 fr/sec would that be twice as fast or twice as slow... or would it work at all?!

So, if I rendered at 60 fr/sec would that be twice as fast or twice as slow... or would it work at all?!


I just tried it and it had no impact when I played it back in blender. However, when I played it with Windows medial player, it was twice as fast.

If I rendered at 20fps, it should be slower, but will it be choppier!?

I just rendered some of it at 15fps, but it's hard to tell with only the 5sec I could render in the time I had.

Completed my intro - thanks to MikeFalz in creating the Universal Blend and zductive for the Star Wars idea.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k242/BritInVA/Website/Theatre/th_HT_Intro.jpg (http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k242/BritInVA/Website/Theatre/?action=view&current=HT_Intro.flv)

Cheers,
Mark

Mark,
I really like your intro, especially the Star Wars part. How did you go about doing that? I would really like to do something like that also.
Thanks,

Mike

Hi MikeFalz and Magius,

I'm trying to edit Mike's template (falzonvideo.com_vid_UniversalTemplate.blend), since it's the one I prefer, using Magius' instructions (instructions.zip) - I know that was asking for a little trouble. A few things don't happen as described in the instructions - the result is impressive nonetheless, however perfection seems tantalisingly close!

My text (which was edited to the left of the globe and then used to replace the mesh in front of the globe) seems to mesh and warp OK, but the animated product has the warped text sitting stationary in front of the spinning globe and the camera merely pans from right to left and zooms out.

Can you guys offer any advice? There's a rapidly developing Blender & AVS Forum Fan Club here in Australia!

Completed my intro - thanks to MikeFalz in creating the Universal Blend and zductive for the Star Wars idea.

Cheers,
Mark


Nice job, looks great!

Hi MikeFalz and Magius,

I'm trying to edit Mike's template (falzonvideo.com_vid_UniversalTemplate.blend), since it's the one I prefer, using Magius' instructions (instructions.zip) - I know that was asking for a little trouble. A few things don't happen as described in the instructions - the result is impressive nonetheless, however perfection seems tantalisingly close!

My text (which was edited to the left of the globe and then used to replace the mesh in front of the globe) seems to mesh and warp OK, but the animated product has the warped text sitting stationary in front of the spinning globe and the camera merely pans from right to left and zooms out.

Can you guys offer any advice? There's a rapidly developing Blender & AVS Forum Fan Club here in Australia!


After turning it into a mesh, you need to make the center of the mesh the same as the center of the globe. Do this by placing the red cursor in the middle of the globe from the top view. Make sure your mesh is selected (purple) and then click "centre cursor." Then go to the IPO curve view, choose object, and select the IP:Oblpo key. This will add a rotation to the mesh and now that's it's center is the globe, it will circle it.


Good luck!

Thanks Mike, much obliged. That's worked perfectly - without any real understanding of what I was doing.

Mark, you should reverse the clips. Do Star Wars first, with a starfield background, then as the music fades, pan down to the planet like in A New Hope, but the planet is the intro for the Universal intro.

Michael,

Would have liked to have added a star field on the Star Wars part but like zductive used Windows Movie Maker and changing background does not seem to be an option.

Was initially (like zductive) putting the Star Wars in front of the Universal but quite like that the Star Wars music continues for 30s after the text dissapears which gives me time to switch to the main feature DVD player.

Would be cool thou to to have a nice transition where the movie pans down to the start of the Universal globe sequence but allas out of my capabilities.

Cheers,
Mark

Mike - can you edit one for me, too?

Cinema Murray

Thanks!

Randy

Very cool on the Star Wars idea. Ultimately I had the idea to do that very thing, only the planet was the Death Star that the text revolved around. To that end, I have searched high and low for a really good Death Star texture map or "surface map" as some call it with which to skin the planet, but have come up totally empty handed. Does anyone out there know where to score one? I've tried all the usual places, force.net, google images, etc... but have come up with nada. Anyone out there have a resource they'd like to share?

Regs,
Jeff

Very cool on the Star Wars idea. Ultimately I had the idea to do that very thing, only the planet was the Death Star that the text revolved around. To that end, I have searched high and low for a really good Death Star texture map or "surface map" as some call it with which to skin the planet, but have come up totally empty handed. Does anyone out there know where to score one? I've tried all the usual places, force.net, google images, etc... but have come up with nada. Anyone out there have a resource they'd like to share?

Regs,
Jeff

Here is a high res one. Let me know if something on it needs to be changed.

Mike - can you edit one for me, too?

Cinema Murray

Thanks!

Randy


Sure, PM your email.

Very cool on the Star Wars idea. Ultimately I had the idea to do that very thing, only the planet was the Death Star that the text revolved around. To that end, I have searched high and low for a really good Death Star texture map or "surface map" as some call it with which to skin the planet, but have come up totally empty handed. Does anyone out there know where to score one? I've tried all the usual places, force.net, google images, etc... but have come up with nada. Anyone out there have a resource they'd like to share?

Regs,
Jeff


Mark's file put the same idea in my head. I found this page:

http://st102.startlogic.com/~blenderw/cms/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=select&id=4

There a blend file for the deathstar on it. It's not really high res, but pretty good. I've replaced the globe with my generic Universal file and I'm rendering now. I'll post it when it's done.

Mike

Mike,

Yeah, I snagged all of those files awhile ago before the owner re-did his site. I've never actually looked at them within Blender, but I was hoping for version 1 of the completed Death Star instead of the half-completed (but FULLY operational) version 2. :) The other issue is, I'm just not sure how good the Blend files are, as nearly all were converted from other programs with Python scripts that I've read were... well... "iffy" at best. Still, can't wait to see how yours turns out.

Back to the Blender Noob to Pro tutorial,
Jeff

^^I added the high res texture that I put together in my last post ^^

Very cool, w84no1. Thanks for sharing. I'll see how it turns out when I get to the point in Blender where I learn to add textures. :)

Much appreciated,
Jeff

Mike,
How do you embed the textures into the .blend files? The .blend file you sent me with my theater had the earth texture inside the file and I am trying to create the death star .blend without having to include the textures separately.

Thanks

I've been following this thread for a while and think what you guys have done is great! I downloaded Blender right after I saw the Fox logo thread. I've taken a few ideas from here and tried to recreate them using Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. I'm much more comfortable there than in Blender.

I really liked Mark's idea of using the Star Wars crawl. I hope you don't mind, but I took your idea and tried it in AE. I'm still working on getting the text to rotate around the planet, but I think it turned out pretty well. I'll probably use some variant of this for my theater intro.

The quality isn't the greatest, I compressed it to load quickly. And some transitions are a little choppy...I just threw it together this afternoon. Just thought I'd let ya'll take a look.

Here's the Star Wars edit:
After Effects Edit (http://www.bananamoon.net/avs/SW_Intro.wmv)

I also did a quick DeathStar:
http://www.bananamoon.net/avs/DeathStar.jpg

Mike,
How do you embed the textures into the .blend files? The .blend file you sent me with my theater had the earth texture inside the file and I am trying to create the death star .blend without having to include the textures separately.

Thanks


Just below the place where you load the file is a button with a picture of a present on it. This toggles the packed/unpacked status of the image. Packed means it's stored with the blender file.

Mike

OK. Here it is...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal_DeathStar.mpg

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/0500.jpg

Mike - can you edit one for me, too?

Cinema Murray

Thanks!

Randy


On it's way...

OK. Here it is...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal_DeathStar.mpg

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/0500.jpg


I really like that. Did you replace the earth mesh with a Death Star mesh or did you just put a texture on the existing earth??

Great job!!!

Gosh, this is fun!

Here's mine: Cinema Murray Custom Universal Open (http://web.mac.com/cptnrandy/iWeb/Site/Universal_style.html)

Can't wait to try this out at home!

Randy

Very cool

Mike,

would you be so kind to make a blend file for me?
Theater name is:
THATCHER BROOK CINEMA

Thanks,
Bernie

That is awesome, Mike! Now just add a Tie fighter being chased by an x-wing zipping across the screen :D

Andy

I really like that. Did you replace the earth mesh with a Death Star mesh or did you just put a texture on the existing earth??

Great job!!!


I replaced the mesh by importing the Deathstar.blend that I found on that page link above.

Mike,

would you be so kind to make a blend file for me?
Theater name is:
THATCHER BROOK CINEMA

Thanks,
Bernie


On it's way...

Mike,

Could yoiu make a .blend file with the Death Star for me? I can't get the Death Star mesh to rotate like the earth did.

WOODY CINEMA
IN HIGH DEFINITION

Thanks!!

Mike,

Could yoiu make a .blend file with the Death Star for me? I can't get the Death Star mesh to rotate like the earth did.

WOODY CINEMA
IN HIGH DEFINITION

Thanks!!


WOODY FAMILY CINEMA
THATCHER BROOK CINEMA
FREIBURG THEATER

All done...

Mike

The Death Star version is very nice! Outstanding job Mike!!

The Death Star version is very nice!


I just sent you one for the CINEMA PARADISO. Enjoy!

Mike

It is rendering as I type this... many thanks Mike, you are too kind!
Best regards
Don

mike,

dont suppose i can have the death star rotate with the words

Albion Street Cinema.

The last one you did went down a treat, if not instructions on how to replace the earth ect

Oh this I gotta have! Mike your a stud! (your Universal Animation gets much praise at my home)

Could you make a Death Star Version for me?

Morton Family Cinema

email in your PM box good sir!

I would also love to have a death star version with the words 'The Flick Room' or a simple set of instructions as to how to convert the Universal one you did for me, I tried based upon the notes that were in the deathstar blender but couldn't make it work.

Steve

Hi guys,

I will work on all of these this weekend. Make sure I have a PM request with your email so I can keep track.

Mike

Andy
I have your x wing and tie advanced running around the death star. Do you want me to blow it up or let the tie advanced run away?

How about an imperial barge to host the party?

Actually, I have the first option about completed.
Should post Saturday

Got a request to share the DeathStar Universal blend file for the generic render above...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalDeathStar.blend

Mike, awesome job, rendering now, can't wait to see the finished project!!! Very many thanks!!

don't have paypal but could snail mail you something,,,,

Just rendered mine and it looks awesome now to choose the music. Many thanks Steve

For those of you that want to do the star wars crawl.
Here is a URL that shows the process.
http://st102.startlogic.com/~blenderw/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=213&Itemid=42

Fair amount of work is involved

The Death Star is VERY cool and all. And I know it is very large. But I don't recall it having the glow of an earthly atmosphere. :)

Mark

I thought that you might like the little intro that I am working on.
Not really trying to be faithful to the series. But thought that this would look cool.
Unfortunately, it is up to ~11 MB for the blender file.

I REALLY REALLY need someone to help me with the audio!anyone!


http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/starwarsrevwithimperialdestroyera8i.jpg

Here is the intro in lo rez.
http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/?action=view&current=starwarsreva8finallorez.flv

Andy
I have your x wing and tie advanced running around the death star. Do you want me to blow it up or let the tie advanced run away?

How about an imperial barge to host the party?

Actually, I have the first option about completed.
Should post Saturday

Wow, cool. Here's another idea...

What would be totally cool is if the DS blew up and out of the debris the letters that make up "feature presentation" assemble into the phrase.

Just thinking out loud :)

Andy

I like this frame more than the other.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/starwarsrevwithimperialdestroyer-1.jpg

To get rid of the dark star, all you would need to do is to change its scale.
So, if you had the theater name hidden inside of the dark star, it could be exposed.

That way, the rendering would only be a few frames per theater. ... interesting.

But, no more work without audio!!!!

OK- I am not a computer genius- once I do the render how do I get it to play??-

OK- I am not a computer genius- once I do the render how do I get it to play??-

Hopefully you rendered it as an avi or a quicktime file. Then you would just play it like one of those files. I you had rendered it as a series of jpeg files then you could either rerender it as an avi or you could find a program to assemble all the jpeg files into an avi.

Adam

In case anybody is wondering, I'm still here. I've been working on the mundane. I'm trying to build a nebula and comets. Particle simulation take a while to render a single frame.

Adam

The Death Star is VERY cool and all. And I know it is very large. But I don't recall it having the glow of an earthly atmosphere. :)

Mark


Details, details.... :o

I suppose it wouldn't too hard to remove the after glow

This is probalby a bit OT, but how do you work these very cool intros into your movie/theater experience? Are you modding ripped DVD files? Using media servers/PCs? Playing on seperate DVD players?

Chuck

Got my Deathstar animation rendered up and it looks great!

So, I guess the big question on my mind is. Whats it gonna take to get that Death Star to fire a big green energy beem at the Theater Titles and explode them?

Not to sound totally stupid but I did render using AVI took 700 frames- now what do I do- How do you save or play the intro- thanks,gary

Not to sound totally stupid but I did render using AVI took 700 frames- now what do I do- How do you save or play the intro- thanks,gary


The avi is editable by any video editing software (including Windows movie maker). Add a fade in/out and the music posted ealier in the thread and you're good to go.

As for playback, your options depend on your setup. If you create a DVD compliant .mpg, you can than burn a DVD and play your intro before the main feature.

Mike,

Can you do a death star blend file for me too (no glow)?

Hauser Home Theater

PM sent.

Thanks!
Andy

If anyone wants to remove the glow from their blender file, do the following:

Go to the top view of frame 1. Look just behind your text and you'll see two little dots. Right click on one of them (you should have selected an object called circle or circle.001). Now press delete. Repeat for the other dot.

Mike

Got my Deathstar animation rendered up and it looks great!

So, I guess the big question on my mind is. Whats it gonna take to get that Death Star to fire a big green energy beem at the Theater Titles and explode them?


To do the big green lines, would just be a halo, similar to all the other ones. The exposion, would redifine long renders. I experimenting with the particle simulator right now, and single frame renders take hours. Perhaps in the future.


Or you could do the 1960ish special effects with the object disappearing in a ball of light. That would be pretty easy. You could do it without too much trouble, if you have the basic of blender down.

Adam

This is probalby a bit OT, but how do you work these very cool intros into your movie/theater experience? Are you modding ripped DVD files? Using media servers/PCs? Playing on seperate DVD players?

Chuck

I have been using a 2nd dvd player. But I think I'm going to get the cables and do it off a laptop with power point.

Adam

I would recommend taking a two part approach to exploding the text.

1 - put spheres behind each letter with perhaps 200 particles each.

2 - shine the laser at each one and have a timed release from each sphere at the time that the laser touches it.

3 - shrink the text by scale to 0 while the particles are being released

This is a smoke and mirrors approach but it seems to work. See my video
I didn't shrink the text but, I did explode the text.

Also, you can apply gravity to the deathstar to cause it to collapse. I am trying to collapse the death star with a morph to theater curtains. Interesting effect and a good way to segue into the movie.

Mike,

Got the blender file you sent me and rendered it on my mac at work. Very cool, I like it! Thanks a million.

Can you send me a blend file of the original universal (earth with glow) version with the my theater name?

Thanks!
Andy

Been working on blowing up the DS. Still a little rough, but getting there.

http://www.bananamoon.net/avs/DS_Explosion.wmv

Justin

Cool, Justin.

Was that just the DS explosion from one of the movies tacked on to the end of the rendered scene, or was that an actual rendered explosion? It seems to just switch from one scene to the other as opposed to the actual rendered scene "blowing up"... but maybe I am just going blind. :)


Thanks for sharing your work!

Regs,
Jeff

Jeff, nah, you're not going blind. I took the explosion from a SW Fan film THX opening and just stuck it to the end. I haven't had time to learn any Blender stuff and have been trying to get something decent out of After Effects. I was just playing around to see what I could get...not much yet as you can see. I really enjoy seeing what everyone has done with Blender. Maybe someday I'll have time to sit down and work with it.

Justin

Justin,

OH yeah, I remember seeing that now. That was really cool... similar to what I'd like to be able to do with this Death Star thing. Of course I can barely switch between object and edit mode in Blender, so it might take some time to create what I see in my mind. :)

Thanks again,
Jeff

I hear ya on that, I have an idea of what I want, but am having a hard time getting it to look that way using Blender. That's why I'm using a combination of Blender and After Effects. What I'm doing now is rendering the background and DS as two seperate clips. I'll render the DS clip with a blank background and overlay it onto the stars clip in AE. Then I'll get into the explosion part. It's much easier to do it in AE, at least for me. The clip I did earlier was just a sample of what I'd like to achieve.

Justin

Another rough draft of the DS exploding. This time I "green screened" the rotating DS over top of the stars and mist (hence the green "glow" and blurry text I need to fix) and did my own explosion and shock wave. Plus I added an X-wing fly-by for effect ;)

I still need to change the text, but this version was done a little different. Mike, could you explain how to change the text? If I missed it somewhere in the thread just point me in the right direction. Thanks for your great work!

http://www.bananamoon.net/avs/DSexplosion_v1.wmv

Justin

Justin,

That last one is awesome!

I have a general question for you Blender experts. I have been trying to teach myself Blender using some of the online tutorials but the quality of them is very variable. Does anyone recommend a book or some other technique for a good way to learn Blender? I have 26 years in computers so I'm no novice but I find some of this 3D stuff very daunting to say the least.

Thanks for any direction you can point me in!

Gary.

I still need to change the text, but this version was done a little different. Mike, could you explain how to change the text? If I missed it somewhere in the thread just point me in the right direction. Thanks for your great work!
Justin


Changing the text means becoming familiar with blender. The template I posted has a text object in the fron left of the scene, and a mesh object (converted from text) that circles the globe. You have to edit the text object. Then convert it to a curve, then a mesh. Move it in place of the existing mesh and make it's center the globe. Add a warp shape ipo, a rotation ipo. Set the face to solid, except curved characters (O, S, C, etc.) set to smooth.

Bottom line, it took me hours and hours to figure out. If you want, just send me a PM with your text and email address, and I'll email you a blender file.

Mike

MikeFalz,
Just a suggestion since it seems you're generating a lot of these customized .blend files for people. You could make an intermediate .blend file similar to the one that I posted long ago and some very simple instructions for how people could customize it. On mine the text object was already in front of the globe, the rotation IPO was already set up, etc. etc. All the user had to do is edit the text, convert to curve and then mesh, recenter the text to the globe if it got moved, and set a warp IPO effect on the text. The warp IPO is the only part needing much explaining, as the rest takes like 8 key presses (tab, edit text, tab, alt-c LMB, alt-c LMB, click "center button") so it was quite simple.

Anyway I just thought something like this might take the load off of you personally having to create so many .blend files. I'd hate to see people stuck not able to make this intro once you've moved on, be it days, weeks, or months from now.

Justin--I agree, that animation looks great. I am impressed.

Magius, you're probably right, but the thought of typing out instructions for this stuff makes me shudder. I'll give it some thought...

Gary,

I'm by no means an expert... merely a noob like yourself, but I did snag the Blender 2.3 handbook from Barnes and Noble yesterday for $50. Expensive, but I wanted something I could actually flip through and stuff vs. wikipedia pages or PDF files, you know. Just a thought.

Regs,
Jeff


Justin,

That last one is awesome!

I have a general question for you Blender experts. I have been trying to teach myself Blender using some of the online tutorials but the quality of them is very variable. Does anyone recommend a book or some other technique for a good way to learn Blender? I have 26 years in computers so I'm no novice but I find some of this 3D stuff very daunting to say the least.

Thanks for any direction you can point me in!

Gary.

Damn, Justin.. that is phenomenal! Keep up the great work. How long have you been working in AE?

Regs,
Jeff

Magius, you're probably right, but the thought of typing out instructions for this stuff makes me shudder. I'll give it some thought...

I agree. Perhaps, you should just modify the instruction that I and Maguis have posted. I can't believe that editing your template would be much different.

Adam

This is all great stuff! I'm tempted to precede 5 minutes of family video with ½ hr of intro's!! We all get mad when the Film Studios do it - perhaps they're just showing off too.

Did anyone ever get the Theatre Curtain to work? The colours were wrong in the original blend file and the curtain movement lacked something.

Now since it seems possible to reproduce/modify most Film Studio intro's, can one of you guys please turn your minds to the MGM (lion roaring) and the Dreamworks (boy on the moon fishing) intro's?

Justin,

Any updates on the exploding Death Star? And how do we modify the text (is there a Blender file)? The fly-by and the explosion are great additions!

I had a go at the MGM lion roaring by basically superimposing my theater name over the old one using adobe premier pro and photoshop. The effect came out OK however getting a match to the font was impossible. Steve

Is Merrie Melodies is another one worth looking at (?) especially as a closer - That's All Folks!

Super Impose,
It's funny that you mention wanting other intros, particularly the Dreamworks intro. I wanted to inspire people to start working on some others, and had a short run at the Dreamworks one myself. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get the fluid simulation to work right at the start with the bobber falling into the water. Blender does not do ripples on water it seems and I'm not skilled enough to "fake" it. I gave up on Dreamworks and moved on to Pixar, though I haven't touched that project in a couple of weeks. I did recently download a ripples plugin for Blender to see if it would help me on Dreamworks, but I haven't worked up the motivation to try again yet.

Another member suggested Lion's Gate with all the gears which would be a massive undertaking if anyone was up to it, but not all that "difficult" as it'd just be a ton of rotational IPO's and a sweeping camera.

I think with the talent that's been shown here working on the Universal intro we could tackle a few more studios, but it's going to require someone laying down the framework and turning it over to us tinkers the same way universal and FOX got done. Starting from scratch I'm finding out is so much more difficult...

:)

If you're really Blender challenged, let me know and I can make you an MPG that you can burn to DVD.

Mike[/QUOTE]
I would love to have a intro. My theater is MotherLode Cinema. I'll pm you my email.

Bring on the Reaper.

does anyone know a quick and easy way to change just the 'Peerless Productions' text on the Universal Logo??

does anyone know a quick and easy way to change just the 'Peerless Productions' text on the Universal Logo??


tennismaddy, look through this thread, there a several template that you can use with instruction on how to do just that. Just taking the peerless file and modifying that is more difficult.

adam

i've made one now...do u know how i can make it faster??

Magius
Where did you find the ripples plug-in?

Jeff, thanks for the great feedback. I've been playing around with AE for about 4 years on and off. Motion graphics are a hobby of mine. Still have a ways to go before I learn all there is to know! But it's fun trying new things.

Super Impose, sorry, no new updates on the clip. Just started back to work after being off for two weeks. I'd like to try my hand at the Dreamworks and other studio intro's. Maybe we should start a new thread for each one?

I've found a curtain plug-in for AE that I'm going to try when I get the time. I'll post my efforts if anything turns out.

Justin

zductive,
The plugin is this one http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/plugins/texture/water/index.html but that's not where I downloaded it from. I downloaded a package with lots of texture and sequence plugins, which was linked to in this tutorial: http://feeblemind.tuxfamily.org/dotclear/index.php/2004/12/24/4-blender-faire-pleuvoir---making-rain
. I haven't tried using the water plugin yet, short of downloading the .blend file from the above tutorial and making sure that the ripples effect worked properly. I have no idea what the plugin will do in other circumstances, such as dropping a bobber on a pool of water :)

Anyway, I don't have time to work on this stuff except on weekends, so it will be a while before I ever get around to trying the Dreamworks intro again. Let me know if anyone makes good use of this water plugin, or any of the others in the package.

jnrock,
I'm glad to see theres some interest in putting together some other studio tutorials. If you get around to trying one I made another thread for various Blender projects that you can post in until the project gets big enough to warrant it's own thread. So far nobody's been using the thread except for my couple of pixar screenshots, but it's there if you want it.

Also, I think it'd be great if we can get enough people together willing to work on these and do another couple of intros. Just like the Universal one, once someone makes a major breakthrough the community will tweak and improve until the next breakthrough is made. Eventually we get a nice looking intro due to the efforts and creativity of a variety of contributers. I'd personally love to tackle Dreamworks, and have been working on understanding particle emitters (clouds) and fluid sims. As I said in the thread above, my time to work these things is limited, but if someone managed to get a basic foundation laid I'd tackle it like I originally did with the Universal file.

hey, i am a noob at blender and can't seem to get any of the blender files on here to work, i just cant chage the text on the death star one or anything because its a mesh or something, can someone send me instructions on how to edit it or something please??

thanks in advance

thecheesyone,
Unfortunately you can't edit the mesh lettering, which is exactly the hurdle that we all faced with the original Peerless version of the Universal file. What you wind up having to do is create your own Text object (spacebar, add, Text), delete the original mesh object, convert your new text object to a mesh, apply the materials and textures to it, and apply all the proper IPOs (ie: when to warp/unwarp, when and how fast to rotate, etc.). It's almost like starting this animation from a blank sheet of paper, except that the earth (or Death Star in this case) is already drawn for you...

It really takes some level of understanding in Blender in order to do all of this this, which is why Atagert and myself released Universal files with the mesh already replaced by straight text, some of the IPOs already set up, and instructions on how to finish it off yourself. With the Death Star animation I'm unaware of anyone creating a tutorial file such as this, so you're likely going to have to get some practice in Blender.

I'd recommend downloading either Atagert's or my .blend file and instructions for the Universal intro and becoming familiar with the process of finishing those off. That will teach you most of what you need to know to change the Death Star intro, and then you can post other questions here when you need to. I'm sure many of us will be willing to walk you through your problems, it's just that with your current question the answer is far too complicated to post here.

i've made one now...do u know how i can make it faster??

faster render or the objects and stuff move faster?

Adam

I'm trying to edit Mike's template (falzonvideo – with the deathstar planet), since it's the one I prefer, using Magius' instructions (instructions.zip). I think the instructions are going well, until about page three.

The instructions ask for selection “SR1-Animation” (this works). The next step says to find a dropdown “object” and select “shape.” I have installed the latest version of Blender on both Linux and Windows. In neither of them do I find a dropdown named object. There are a couple of buttons names object but they don’t have “shape” under them.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm trying to edit Mike's template (falzonvideo – with the deathstar planet), since it's the one I prefer, using Magius' instructions (instructions.zip). I think the instructions are going well, until about page three.

The instructions ask for selection “SR1-Animation” (this works). The next step says to find a dropdown “object” and select “shape.” I have installed the latest version of Blender on both Linux and Windows. In neither of them do I find a dropdown named object. There are a couple of buttons names object but they don’t have “shape” under them.

Any help would be appreciated.


Look for the menu that I have up.

Adam

Thirdmonkey I'm sorry you're having trouble with the instructions. They were actually written for 2.42a and the latest Blender is 2.43, so I don't know if there's been a change in that menu or it's location since you're using the latest version.

Atagert's photo is about the best help I can think to give you, so hopefully that gets you what you need. If you still can't find it I'd recommend installing 2.42a :D. We're all amateurs around here, and at least personally I can only talk to the version that I've been using.

Thirdmonkey I'm sorry you're having trouble with the instructions. They were actually written for 2.42a and the latest Blender is 2.43, so I don't know if there's been a change in that menu or it's location since you're using the latest version.

Atagert's photo is about the best help I can think to give you, so hopefully that gets you what you need. If you still can't find it I'd recommend installing 2.42a :D. We're all amateurs around here, and at least personally I can only talk to the version that I've been using.

I just checked with the latest version, the menu is the same.

Adam

Does anyone know if the new 2.43 version solves the flicker problem in the original Fox rendering?

Tom

object is in the dropdown located at the bottom middle of the right hand pane after you select sr1 animation.

Look around, its there

Thanks for your effort guys. I took a screenshot of my problem (missing "Shape") and uploaded it. I am using Blended 2.42a

Thanks for your effort guys. I took a screenshot of my problem (missing "Shape") and uploaded it. I am using Blended 2.42a


wow, yeah, it really isn't there. The answer isn't obvious to me. can you tell me more about what system you are using and which compile version.

Adam

I simply downloaded Blender from their site and installed it. This picture is on my pc (XP OS) but the Linux installation at work is identical.

Oh well. Maybe some kind person would make me a blender file featuring the death star that says "Doomsday Theater" instead of Universal :)

I bet I could render it from there.

thirdmonkey that's totally crazy what you're showing. I thought at first that I saw your problem because you have the text selected while in Atagert's image he has the earth selected. I do know that the menu in question changes based on what kind of object is selected, but then I looked at my own instructions. You're at the part where you're trying to set the warp IPOs on the text mesh, so you really *should* have the text object selected... it all made no sense.

Then I had a second idea that since the object menu changes, maybe it's not showing "shape" because you didn't insert any shape keys...

The only thing that I can think of is that you somehow skipped over the text warping part of the instructions (ctrl-w) and/or forgot to insert the shape keys at frames 1 and 300 while performing the warping. If you didn't set the shape keys (by pressing "i" and choosing shape) then I can see why there would be no option for "shape" in the object menu.

If I'm wrong and you followed the instructions correctly then I have no idea what has gone wrong. Let me know if any of this helps you, and if not I'll think on it a bit more.

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/0501.jpg

I've created a new blender file with and some step by step instructions to customize it.

Template -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalNewTemplate.blend

Instructions -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal%20Blender%20Instructions.doc

Good luck!

Mike

Mike,

I was doing great until the instruction:

Click the Shapes Tab

For the life of me, I can't find a Shapes Tab.

Might be because I'm using it on a Mac. But I don't think so. I have a feeling it's an icon rather than a word.

Also, later in the instructions, it says to press F10 to enter Scene Mode. F10 definitely won't work on the Mac because that key is mapped to a Mac OS X function. Is there another way to enter Scene mode?

Thanks for your hard work on this!!!!!!!

Mark

Well I've never seen it on a Mac, but let me explain what I see.


In the Panels view, I have a box with 2 tabs in it. One says Modifiers, the other say Shapes. The Shapes tab has one button in it, called "Add Shape Key", once you press it other options appear. NOTE: You will not see this until you've turned your text into a mesh.

Another option for f10 is to press the scenes icon button. In the panels window, its the last button before the frame number. It has a picture of a little rectangle picture with a mountain range in it. Hovering over it reveals the word "Scene".

Mike,

I am attaching two photos showing a capture of Blender on my Mac. My screen is fairly wide so I'm including an image of the whole desktop, plus a grab of just the Panels view at the bottom. This is what Blender looks like after I've already edited the "Your Theater" text, converted the text to a curve and converted the curve to a mesh. I've also set the frame number to 1.

There was a FONTS option in the panels view BEFORE I converted the text to a curve. It disappeared as I made the conversion. Likewise, the curves option in the panels view disappeared and became Mesh when I converted the text to a Mesh. But these two remaining options (Link & Materials and Mesh) are the only two options I see remaining in Panels. I've searched the various Panels options and I can't find a Shapes Tab anywhere.

Thanks again for your help!!

Mark

Yep, it's not there. I have a 3rd box next to the Mesh box. How about when you go to edit mode? When I go to edit mode, I get Mesh Tools boxes.

Try clicking View, View All. To make sure it's not hidden.

Also try pressing "i" while your mouse is in the top view box. This is the shortcut to insert a keyfame. Click on Mesh when the pop-up shows. You will probably have to work backwards. Insert a key frame at 270. Then go to 180, warp the mesh and insert another keyframe. Then go to 1 and insert the final.

If I go into Edit mode, I do indeed get two new boxes.... Mesh Tools and Mesh Tools 1. But neither has a Shapes Tab nor a Modifiers Tab.

Frustrating! Thank you for your help anyway!

Mark

Older versions of Blender, at least on PC's, had a different name for the shape process. From Wikipedia:

Editor's Note: Including and up through Blender version 2.31, Shape keys in Blender were called Relative Vertex Keys, since the movement of the vertice was relative to its old position. That term was too geeky, and we now call them Shape keys, because the overall net effect is to change the shape of the object.

You can search for an animation tutorial with Blender version 2.31 that uses Relative Shape Keys. I have not explored this area to see if it helps, but I was playing around with version 2.37 of Blender and it apparently does not have shape tabs either.

Very interesting! Thanks Tom! I believe the version of Blender I am running on my Mac is 2.37 (I'm not at home to check for sure right now). I will try downloading a newer version and see what happens.

Thanks again!

Mark

Mike -

I tried a quick test of your new template and instructions using 2.43a on a PC and it worked great. I was having some difficulty weith prior versions.

Thanks for the updates!
Tom

Mike,

Tom nailed it! The latest Mac version of Blender (2.43) has the shapes tab! But I'm stuck in a new spot.

I've successfully: Clicked the Add Shape Key twice, moved the cursor back into the top view window and pressed TAB, pressed A to select all (text turns yellow), pressed Shift W to warp the text (it wraps around the earth), left clicked to accept the warp, pressed TAB to leave edit mode (the text becomes straight again), back in the Shapes TAB, I dragged the bar next to 0.00 over to the right till it says 1.00, and changed the frame number to 180..... and then I'm stuck.

The next instruction says to go back to the Shapes Tab and left click on the bar next to the 1.00 (to add another key frame). I cannot figure out which bar you are referring to. I've clicked on just about everything in the Shapes TAB and doen't see anything that looks like it is adding a key frame?

I'm attaching a photo of my Mac's Shapes TAB box. If you could advise by description using the photo I would very much appreciate it!

Almost there!!!! Thank you for your patience!!

Mark

This part is confusing because nothing appears to happen, but clicking again on the same bar you dragged from 0.00 to 1.00 adds another key frame. If you want drag it to 0 and then back to 1.00 again before moving on to frame 270.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!

Mike, Thank You for your patience!!!!

BTW, on the Mac, you can get to F10 by going under the Render menu (in the Top View window) and selecting it from the drop down.

I already animated a 852x480 version and the 1280x720 version is running now.

Mark

I tried a quick test of your new template and instructions using 2.43a

Actually, make that version 2.42. Instructions are perfect. Takes less than 2 minutes to edit.

I got a machine upgrade at work...took SEVEN minutes to render all 700 frames. Now, if we could only get the FOX logo to render that fast.....

Tom

Hey gang,

I've been following and Blending along with you guys on this and the FOX logo and I haven't seen much talk about 16x9 anamorphic renders. If it's there I haven't run across it.

So... I think I've got it figured out.
In the render section select "pano" preset and change the size to 720x480 then change the aspect to 115 and 100. That should give you a tall and skinny render!

Cheers,
Andy

Thanks for all the effort everybody has put in on this, has made it easier for the rest of us. I rendered the animation and extracted the DD5.1 audio from their real intro and added it into mine. Also made two different versions, first one features a Dolby Digital intro after my theater intro, and the second is a DTS intro after my theater intro.

nelsona (and anyone else that cares to add their thoughts) -

How did you add the audio? I was just about to post asking if there is anything special to do that is different form doing it the way the original instructions for the FOX logo work.

Here's my problem.....
Using the instructions from page 26 of the original FOX thread (which work perfectly for the FOX blend).....

1. Edited and rendered the lastest "new" Universal blend.
2. Demuxed the Universal ac3 file from a DVD (not actually in the instructions, but it's how I got a 5.1 file of the theme).
3. using AVIMux added the ac3 file to my rendered raw avi file

now, if I play the avi file, just like the the instructions say, it sounds horrible, but it is definitely playing the correct music.

4. I run it through AVItoDVD and it looks beautiful, but now plays the FOX theme!

I can't see anywhere in the AVItoDVD that allows you to specifiy where the music file to use is located. It picks it up from the avi file. When I load the avi file, it shows the correct name of the raw avi with the correct ac3 file.

I spent two hours trying this last night, so, if I'm making a mistake somewhere, I'm making the same mistake over and over. And we all know that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the first sign of insanity.

So, am I crazy?

Thanks for ANY insight.
Tom

nelsona (and anyone else that cares to add their thoughts) -

How did you add the audio? I was just about to post asking if there is anything special to do that is different form doing it the way the original instructions for the FOX logo work.

Here's my problem.....
Using the instructions from page 26 of the original FOX thread (which work perfectly for the FOX blend).....

1. Edited and rendered the lastest "new" Universal blend.
2. Demuxed the Universal ac3 file from a DVD (not actually in the instructions, but it's how I got a 5.1 file of the theme).
3. using AVIMux added the ac3 file to my rendered raw avi file

now, if I play the avi file, just like the the instructions say, it sounds horrible, but it is definitely playing the correct music.

4. I run it through AVItoDVD and it looks beautiful, but now plays the FOX theme!

I can't see anywhere in the AVItoDVD that allows you to specifiy where the music file to use is located. It picks it up from the avi file. When I load the avi file, it shows the correct name of the raw avi with the correct ac3 file.

I spent two hours trying this last night, so, if I'm making a mistake somewhere, I'm making the same mistake over and over. And we all know that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the first sign of insanity.

So, am I crazy?

Thanks for ANY insight.
Tom

Here's how I did it on mine. First, the software I used was: DVD Lab Pro, Xilisoft Video Converter, DVD Shrink, and DVD Audio Extractor. After rendering the AVI file in Blender, I used Video Converter to convert it to DVD .VOB format. I downloaded the real Universal Studios intro, and used DVD Audio Extractor to pull out and preserve the DD5.1 audio. Also downloaded a DTS intro .VOB file and pulled the DTS audio out of it. Loaded up DVD Lab Pro and started a new project (Basic Movie), added in my Universal intro, and the DTS intro, and then added the DD5.1 and DTS5.1 tracks. Compiled the DVD and used DVD Shrink to get rid of the menu that DVD Lab Pro automatically created. Not sure if there is a way to turn that off, didn't look very hard. Burned the final project in Nero and tested it on the theater, which worked perfectly. If you need more step by step stuff, just give me a pm and I can go over it with you. :)

nelsona -

Thanks. I'll try to convert the avi to vob first, and THEN add the sound track. I think I've accumulated enough applications to make that work.

It's just weird why it doesn't work the way I'm trying. I'm still open to suggestions on my original attempt. This kind of thing just bugs the heck out of me.

Tom

Just an update to the problem I was having....

4. I run it through AVItoDVD and it looks beautiful, but now plays the FOX theme

Apparently, AVI2DVD creates a script to do the conversion and stores it in a temp directory. I assumed (and we all know what that means!) that the script would be created and stored (overlayed) for each job. It seems as though if a script already exisits, it does not get overlayed. It must get the audio from the script but use the video you specify. SO, since I last converted the FOX avi, it used the FOX audio.

I deleted the entire temp directory and let the conversion routine re-create it and it worked fine!

I just thought this would help as more and more of these intros are being created. It wouldbe nice to come up with a single set of instructions that can be repeatable for different renders.

Tom

Tom

Tom (or anyone),

This stuff just confuses the heck out of me...how in the world do you pull the ac3 fanfare off of a dvd. I have been trying for days and can not make heads or tails of any of this.

I was using smartripper to attempt this.

Could you advise on how you did this? Or can you send me the ac3 file?

I really wish I could figure out some of this dvd ripping/authoring/extracting stuff...I think its really cool...I'm just so clueless.

Thanks,

Mark.

Mark -

I just ran a search for "free demuxing software" and got about a million hits. "Demuxing" separates the audio from the video and "muxing" combines it. The hard part was finding a movie that I had on hand from Universal. I used Decrypter (again, free!) to create a file of only the intro, then ran it though the demuxing software to get the ac3 file.

File is 1.2 meg and I can't get it to compress to less than the allowed 500K. PM me with an email and I'll send it to you.

Tom

I've used the blend file "Yout theatre" ... work great .. but: What can i do if my buttons window is screwed up with this file? The buttons start left out of the window ... ? If i use my other blend files, that does not happen ... i have tryed it on another computer as well ... same thing ...

Click on the "Panels" menu choice. You can then resize them, or restack them so you can see them all.

Mike -

Fantastic blend file - thank you very much - documentation made it work like a charm.

Is there a way to delay when "Feature Presentation" comes up? Maybe by about 3 or 4 seconds?

Thanks again for taking time out to put this all together.

Mike -

Is there a way to delay when "Feature Presentation" comes up? Maybe by about 3 or 4 seconds?



I rendered mine at 28 frames/sec instead of 30. This allowed the "Feature Presentation" to pop up with better timing against the music.

Ronnie

Gollkla:

...but: What can i do if my buttons window is screwed up with this file? The buttons start left out of the window ... ? If i use my other blend files, that does not happen ... i have tryed it on another computer as well ... same thing ...

Gollkla, there should be a menu item -- "Panels" -- it is located above the button section, and over toward the left hand side of the screen. If you click on "Panels," one of the choices there will be "Zoom Out." Choose this option. If one click is not enough, you can repeat this process until the entire "buttons" section is within your view.

I looked at your graphic, and I can see the "Panels" button, it is mostly hidden by one of the "wings" of the red arrow you drew that is pointing toward the southwest corner of the screen.

Hope this helps,

-Bruce

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/0501.jpg

I've created a new blender file with and some step by step instructions to customize it.

Template -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalNewTemplate.blend

Instructions -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal%20Blender%20Instructions.doc

Good luck!

Mike

Hey Mike,

Thanks very very much!! Downloaded the files, made the changes and started rendering within 10 minutes.

The rendering takes a bit longer of course... :(
On that note: when rendering i noticed that only one processor of my dual-core machine is used. While this does leave me enough processor power to browse AVS, having Blender use both cores would increase rendering speed. Anyone have a fix for this?

PS: i searched the web and came across a site that offers optimized versions of Blender (http://www.blenderbuilds.com/2007/03/21/march-release-spring/), but these do not seem to include dualcore support.

PPS: OK, for anyone that might have the same question: the answer seems to be to set the THREAD option to something other than 1, letting Blender generate more than one rendering thread.

Thanks,

Not sure if anyone else has stumbled across this site, or if it belongs to someone here, but I found a website that does a fairly good tutorial on how to create the older style Universal intro in Blender from scratch. Might be a good thing to look at if you're just learning Blender and want to know how the others here have create their beautiful work.

Universal Blender Tutorial (http://kahuna.clayton.edu/~jbrooks/blender/tutorials/universal/index.html)

Not sure if anyone else has stumbled across this site, or if it belongs to someone here, but I found a website that does a fairly good tutorial on how to create the older style Universal intro in Blender from scratch. Might be a good thing to look at if you're just learning Blender and want to know how the others here have create their beautiful work.

Universal Blender Tutorial (http://kahuna.clayton.edu/~jbrooks/blender/tutorials/universal/index.html)


Thanks, a lot of the work from this thread is from that tutorial. It was posted on page 2. I guess that's a sign of the thread getting too long...

I just wanted to offer up a huge thanks to all who have contributed to much to this thread. For me, Mike's tutorial was invaluable.

Thanks guys...I love this place!!

-Ben

That tutorial is a great find!

Here is a pic of my Universal intro:
http://members.home.nl/walterfang/art/blackhole/renders0700a.jpg

Looks great. I haven't tried a 2 line animation. How do the lines look as they wrap around the globe?

I'm glad those instructions have worked out so well, saved me a lot of work!

btw, have you tried replacing the earth map with just a flat or gloss black image? It might actually look like a black hole...

Hey Mike,

Excellent idea! Hadn't really thought of that yet. I made this long before I read the instructions, so I haven't figured out how to remove\replace the earth map yet. But i'm certainly going to see if I can do that.

The 2 lines should be a little more centered vertically, but don't know how to do that.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I like the idea of the black hole texture instead of the earth. That's an easy thing to change, but I'm not sure how it would look as just plain black. Be sure if you try it to turn off specular reflections, as otherwise the scene lighting will ruin the effect by bouncing off the "black hole". If you can pull off the look I think it would be a great custom version of this animation. Another thing that mightbe cool is the earth breaking up and collapsing into a black hole, but now we're really getting out there...

On another note, if you look at my version of the Universal logo rather than Mike's you'll see that even the single line text is not centered around the Earth's equator. This is simply because that's not where it is on the Universal logo. I'm a very "symmetry oriented" person as well, but in an effort to be as close to the original as possible I rendered my version south of the equator, almost exactly where your text happens to be centered now. It's really just a matter of personal preference, but at least if you decide it's not worth it to go through a recentering process (It shouldn't be that hard, and you can pull the gist of what to do out of my original instructions that required setting your own rotation keyframes) you'll have a plausible story for why it's not centered :D

Definitely give the black hole look a try and show us how it turns out!

Hey Magius,

I really like the idea too, but after briefly going over the Universal tutorial i can think i can manage to delete the bitmap, and even replace it with a black surface. But what are specular reflections, and how would I go about turning these off??
You are right, the black surface should not reflect anything. Would it be possible to set things so that it even "sucks light in", so to speak??

I like the idea of the earth being sucked in to the black hole. But that would take some blender skills i don't have...
But it may even be more dramatic if the earth just turned into a black hole suddenly (imagine LF sound effect), and then starts sucking in the text. How difficult would that be??

I may have to start looking for a quick blender tutorial..

DenW,
I've attached an image called "Specular Demo" that shows what a specular reflection is, and how to go about turning them off through the materials tab. To be honest, I think there is another button somewhere else that literally turns off the ability of an object to specularly reflect light, but this solution accomplishes the same thing and I couldn't remember where that other button might be.

What this image shows is in the materials tab you have 3 different RGB values that can be set. Col defines the normal color of the opject, Spec defines the color of light that gets specularly reflected, and Mir has to do with the object being a mirror and reflecting light directly. Spec I've noticed in some tutorials is used on metallic type materials, etc. to give an object shine or luster.

The default setting for Spec is simply 1:1:1 or pure white light. This creates the spotlight shines on objects like the earth (right above the "C" in Black Hole in your image). By setting Spec to 0:0:0 the object no longer reflects light (or perhaps more correctly it reflects black light? - lol I'm no expert) or in any case the specular reflections disappear.

Check out the attached picture for an example of what I'm talking about, and I would think you would have to use this technique to produce a believable black hole.

One other thing: To make the earth break up and collapse into a black hole is well beyond my abilities in Blender, but what I tend to do best is"fake it" :D .

I had a thought that by creating a grayscale .jpg with jagged regions of black, white, and maybe a shade of gray or 2 and applying it to the earth's normal map it would give the earth the appearance that certain regions had been pushed out and others had sunken in. Shadows would be created in between, and hopefully the borders between the regions might look like giant chasms or something. I did a quick experiment with a black and white checkerboard pattern and the theory was partiallyy sound, but of course the symmetrical nature of the pattern was ridiculous.

In any case, if a reasonable normal map like that could be generated the earth could suddenly appear to have "broken up" and who knows where it could go from there.

As far as just sucking in the text there may be a way to "fake" that as well. I would suggest trying the warp tool to make the text bend inwards from the sides at the same time that you gradually move it's center towards the hole's center and shrink it's scale. This should make it look like the text is being greatly distorted as it nears the hole, and the shrinking should help it appear to be moving away from camera.

Anyways I don't know, I'm just a noob at this stuff myself, but so far we've demonstrated that with a community full of creative people and a problem to solve we'll get it done :D Good luck!

I've created a new blender file with and some step by step instructions to customize it.

Template -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalNewTemplate.blend

Instructions -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal%20Blender%20Instructions.doc

Good luck!

Mike
Mike,
When I render this, the text is twisted like DNA as it comes around the earth. Was this your intent? Is there a simple change I can make to have the text oriented like your old blender file? I tried editing you original blender file, but can't figure out how to select the text so I can go into edit mode.

Thanks,
Steve

Mike,
When I render this, the text is twisted like DNA as it comes around the earth. Was this your intent? Is there a simple change I can make to have the text oriented like your old blender file? I tried editing you original blender file, but can't figure out how to select the text so I can go into edit mode.

Thanks,
Steve


That's really weird. The file is set up so that if you open it and follow the instructions from step one, you'll go right into edit mode. I've never from anyone having a twisting issue. Try downloading and starting over...

Make sure your mouse pointer is in a frame where the text is. Key stroke actions are sensitive to the location of the pointer.

That's really weird. The file is set up so that if you open it and follow the instructions from step one, you'll go right into edit mode. I've never from anyone having a twisting issue. Try downloading and starting over...

Make sure your mouse pointer is in a frame where the text is. Key stroke actions are sensitive to the location of the pointer.

O.k. I found my mistake. When I warped the text (Shift W), my mouse was in the wrong window. I was in the Camera Perspective window, not the Top Ortho window.

Thanks!

Steve

I made the same mistake with the warped text. I was in the wrong box when I hit Shift-W. Luckily I saw it before I rendered the entire avi file, and only lost about 20 minutes of time.


Mike (and everyone else) - Thanks for the work and effort you've put into this project.

I'm interested in one of the DeathStar intros. I had another idea for it as well... Start off with the Imperial March music (or something sinister like it) while the text and earth rotates around, and have the x-wing or tie fighter fly-by bringing up the Feature Presentation text, and end with Darth's breathing or the sound of light sabers either swinging or hitting each other.


EDIT - I just added the Universal music to the avi and I have to say it's just freakin' awesome....

I just realized that when I combined the AVI with the audio using Virtuadub, the size of the file increaed exponentially - My little intro is now 835MB...What did I do wrong... Can I recompress it and get it to am manageable size?

Edit - nevermind.... I'm brain dead... I just realized that that's still the RAW AVI file. I ran it throught MS Movie Maker and shrank it down to under 4MB. D'oh !!

That's what you get when a hardware person tries to do software things...

MikeFalz - The DeathStar blend file you have linked already has the text in a mesh. Can you repost the file without the mesh or tell us how to change the lettering once it's been converted to a mesh?

MikeFalz - The DeathStar blend file you have linked already has the text in a mesh. Can you repost the file without the mesh or tell us how to change the lettering once it's been converted to a mesh?


I'll post a new file later.

Mike

I'll post a new file later.

Mike

Thanks Mike.... I really love the new intros. My wife just rolls her eyes....

MikeFalz - The DeathStar blend file you have linked already has the text in a mesh. Can you repost the file without the mesh or tell us how to change the lettering once it's been converted to a mesh?


Here's the new file...

http://www.falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalDeathStarNew.blend

The existing instructions should do the trick...

http://www.falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal%20Blender%20Instructions.doc

Mike

Mike - Cool, I'll try it out right now.....THANKS.

BTW - what music would work the best for this? I got a copy of the Imperial March, but it's like 3-4 seconds longer than the animation. Is there a way to add more time to the beginning, possibly a longer fade in from black.

I guess I could fade in from black on another app - any suggestions on a free app I could test it on before I spend $$ on an app? MS Movie maker doesn't do a long enough fade.

Great work everyone. Now I'm hooked on Blender. (Like I need more things to be hooked on!)

Just one question with the Universal Logo. The first time I tried this, it worked beautifully and I had a great animation. Then I went and ran it using Quicktime, and for some reason the avi file got damaged where it now is shifted to the right about a tenth of the width of the screen with the right side displayed on the left when played with media player, movie maker, or any other software other than quick time.

Anyway, I had not saved my blender file, like an idiot, so I decided to start over. No big deal, right? Well, now I can't get it to work. I cannot get the text to start out behind the globe. I think it is due to left click right after the shift-w (warp) command. If I move the mouse around before I left click the mesh changes. My question is where should the left click take place.

Nevermind. I found my problem. I hit the center command instead of center cursor. Anyone else have issues with Quicktime? After I animate this one I'll play around and see if it happens again.

Thanks again for introducing me to this great tool.

Hi folks,

I'm having some problems with this animation. May be the version of Blender, 2.43??
But I've successfully rendered the "Fox" and "Disney" projects with this version so....

In following Mike's instructions I have no problems until I get to "Click the Shapes Tab." I can't find this tab !!!
I noticed back a page or so that someone else had the same problem but they were using a MAC. I'm not. Regular WinTel box running XP-pro.

Any ideas?
:confused:

-t

I had this problem this morning of not seeing the shapes tab. Hit F9 and it should show up. If not close the file and re-open it (save it of course) and try to hit F9 before doing anything else.

I had this problem this morning of not seeing the shapes tab. Hit F9 and it should show up. If not close the file and re-open it (save it of course) and try to hit F9 before doing anything else.

Nope...still nothing labeled "Shapes".
I have "Links and Materials" , "Curve and SUrface", "Modifiers" and "Font"

-t

Try opening blender by itself, hitting F9 and seeing hte Shapes tab is there. Then open the file.

I have had the shapes tab move off the right side of the screen. Try holding down the MMB in the buttons window and scrolling left.

Thanks everyone for the tutorials and answers to questions for us dummies. :)

I do have a small problem - I want to make the map "end" on Australia - as that is where I am.
I have tried rotating the world map at the beginning and even the end point - but after rendering it always ends as the original did. This is so frustrating as I am sure it is a minor edit that I can't find in the menus... :(

Please help, thanks, Yoges.

My solution may not be the perfect solution for you -- it is in fact a bit of a workaround, since I had a similar issue that I was not able to control completely, when an image was being used on a sphere that rotated).

My inelegant solution:

If one increases the "final frame number" the animation goes on longer. The longer the animation continues, the more the sphere continues spinning since there is no command telling it to stop.

BUT... if one simply lengthens the time spinning (until Autralia ends up in center view), this would throw off any attempt to time the animation to music. So... what if you also changed the STARTING point of the animation? (It does NOT have to begin animating at frame number one. YOU can control this, as well.)

The starting and end frames can be changed on the screen that displays all of the RENDERE SETTINGS.

See if you can play with this as a workaround.... while you wait for someone who has solved this properly to respond.

-Bruce
-Custom Home Theater Intros on DVD: http://www.S2Digital.com

Yogi69, it is quite easy to do what you'd like to do. I did just that when I was making the original version of this animation, as the default position of the Earth texture (zero degrees) made for a looong pan over the Pacific for most of the animation. I offset it by 90 degrees to start somewhere around Indonesia and finish off over the Americas which I thought looked a lot better.

In any case, there are 2 keys that you're going to have to change, one on frame 1 and one on frame 530 (the final frame of the animation). The keys to change are the rotation keys on the earth. Here are the values that the keys are currently set to:
Frame 1: 90 degrees
Frame 530: 270 degrees

To change a key you simply go to the appropriate frame, right click the Earth to select it, press "n" to bring up the transform properties window if it's not already up, type in a new value for "RotZ", press "i" to bring up the insert key menu, and finally click "Rot".

You'll want to use that procedure on both the first and last frames to set your new values, and make sure that the 2 values are separated by 180 in order to keep the existing speed of the Earth's rotation. My suggestion would be to use 50 degrees as the final position, and -130 as the initial position. This should give you a pretty good shot of Australia as the animation finishes, but you're going to have to contend with the "long Pacific Pan" that I mentioned before.

Anyways, that should be all you need to know about tweaking either the speed or positioning of the Earth's rotation. Let me know if there's anything else that you're having trouble with.

I forgot the standard disclaimer: My instructions above only apply specifically to my own version of the animation, and probably to Atagert's as well as his was a fork from my original. MikeFalz's animation is based on the original Peerless file and therefore his settings for rotation speed and coordinates may be different. In fact I don't even know how many total frames are in his animation or if it renders at 25 or 30fps, so you'll have to experiment with the settings I quoted until you find a combination that works.

The steps for doing what you want to do are the same, only the specific values for RotZ and frame numbers may be incorrect. Hope that still helps!

Thank you Magius and BSpielbauer - I will give it a try - you guys make this forum great! :)

After many hours of fiddling - it all worked out. It took so long as I agree so much Pacific Ocean and so little land makes it less obvious that it is the earth - I tried to have an each way bet.... Hopefully when I put it to music It will be OK. :)

I never expected my 72 year old brain to be able to do the first thing with the Universal opening in Blender, but thanks to this thread and Mike Falz's generous sharing of his template file, I had complete success in one afternoon. Incrediable.

One thing remains. How do I get the logo music off this site in a usable form?

http://www.reelclassics.com/Gallery/music26.htm

BTW, I'm not using mine for a theater opening (that may come later). I'm using it as an opening for my home videos. I edit in Grass Valley Edius professional video editing software.

I'm assuming if you wanted to use this for a feature film opening in a home theater, and have it edited right up in front of the movie start, one would have to use an HTPC, is that correct?

Hi Deane, I am at work right now and the "netnanny" won't allow me to download mp3 files
Have a look at the other thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11159048&highlight=mux#post11159048

When making the Fox intro I used AVI-Mux (freeware) to add the .ac3 audio file and it worked fine.

Thanks, I got it. Rather simple. Just right click on the musical note and use "save link as". I just had never need to know how to do it before.

The MP3 file works perfect in my Grass Valley Edius software, so I don't even need to do a conversion. I can then time the video with the music and export in any form I want. Edius allows me to slow down or speed up the video track to make it all come out timed perfect with the audio. I wanted the "in high definition" to hit right on a music stab.

New problem.

I had a highly successful rendering of the clip. Smooth as glass. Then, I decided to do an additional clip with "in widescreen" instead of "in high definition". I made a copy of the original, changed only the bottom line and did a render. The whole thing plays back with some little jerks in the flow. All sections, the earth rotation, the lettering jerk together, so it must be the entire playback, not just a single element.

Any ideas what created this issue?

On the Universal Into video, and the MP3 file, I had to cut off hte first 2.5-3 seconds of silence from the file. Actually I think I got rid of all of hte lead-in silence on the MP3. That had my "Feature Presentation" and the music queue hit almost perfectly. I think there is a .1 second difference, but it's good enough for me.

Not sure on the jerky clip....are you looking at the RAW output AVI file, ro has it been encoded with a codec?

New problem.

I had a highly successful rendering of the clip. Smooth as glass. Then, I decided to do an additional clip with "in widescreen" instead of "in high definition". I made a copy of the original, changed only the bottom line and did a render. The whole thing plays back with some little jerks in the flow. All sections, the earth rotation, the lettering jerk together, so it must be the entire playback, not just a single element.

Any ideas what created this issue?


How exactly are you playing back the file? Is it on a PC or an HTPC? The reason I ask -- I have found that sometimes I will see jerky playback on my PC, and it seems to be due to the system resources available at the time. I have seen a lot of video clips that played fine one day, and then exhibited "jerky" and choppy playback the next. A re-boot seemed to solve the problems. And, I have seen this with four different software players (Windows Media Player, Nero's player, the ATI player that came with my video card, and Windows Media Classic.

I have then burned the result to a DVD, and noticed that the results came out fine.

If none of this applies to your situation, just ignore my entire reply.

-Bruce
-Customized Home Theater Intros on DVD: http://www.S2Digital.com

I was just clicking on the avi file and letting the Windows Media Player play it. Maybe you've hit it the problem. Yes, it's on a PC. Dell Pentium IV, 3.4 mHz, 4 gig ram.

Try opening blender by itself, hitting F9 and seeing hte Shapes tab is there. Then open the file.

Been out of town for a few days and just got back to this...

rgroves, many thanks for the hint of opening Blender first. It worked!! :)

Finished the edits and I'm rendering as I write this.

-t

Guys, I am trying to add text to the Universal Studio blender file. I am following the instructins provided, but I am stuck here:
• Back in the Shapes Tab, left click on the bar next to the 1.00 (it should stay at 1.00, but this will add another key frame).

For the life of me, I can not seem to get this to work. Please what do I need to do. Where next to the 1.00 do I left click? What should happen? Does 1.00 highlight as if in edit mode? If so, then what?

FYI: I am using the latest Blender...just downloaded today

My latest attempt is this...when at frame 270, my title text is layed out flat as it should, then the world should just spin for the remaining frames...however, from frame 270 on, my text "left and right ends (if that makes sense) begins to stretch (wrapped effect) to the back side of the world. I am certain the step above that I listed is where I went wrong...help!

Thanks

Hi Kezug,

Got your PM. I'll respond here in case someone has the same issue.

First, you may want to start fresh from the original file in case you have an extra key frame in there somewhere.


With the shapes tab slider you are creating key frames. The first is at frame 1 with a value of 1.00. This means the text should be curved at frame 1. The next is at frame 180, again value of 1.00. This means the text should stay curved from 1 to 180. The next is at frame 270, a value of 0.00 (or straight). This means the text should gradually move from curved to straight between frames 180 and 270. If there are no more keyframes, the text will stay straight for the rest of the animation.

If this is the step that is tripping you up...
· Back in the Shapes Tab, left click on the bar next to the 1.00 (it should stay at 1.00, but this will add another key frame).

... then for this step, drag the bar to zero and back to 1.00 again before switching frames. This will accomplish the same thing.



I suspect you have another 1.0 key frame later in the animation which is causing it to curve again.

Good luck,
Mike

Hi Kezug,

Got your PM. I'll respond here in case someone has the same issue.

First, you may want to start fresh from the original file in case you have an extra key frame in there somewhere.


With the shapes tab slider you are creating key frames. The first is at frame 1 with a value of 1.00. This means the text should be curved at frame 1. The next is at frame 180, again value of 1.00. This means the text should stay curved from 1 to 180. The next is at frame 270, a value of 0.00 (or straight). This means the text should gradually move from curved to straight between frames 180 and 270. If there are no more keyframes, the text will stay straight for the rest of the animation.

If this is the step that is tripping you up...
· Back in the Shapes Tab, left click on the bar next to the 1.00 (it should stay at 1.00, but this will add another key frame).

... then for this step, drag the bar to zero and back to 1.00 again before switching frames. This will accomplish the same thing.



I suspect you have another 1.0 key frame later in the animation which is causing it to curve again.

Good luck,
Mike

Thanks Mike....it works now.

Now my current issues: 1) no sound...how do I add the sound?
2) Playback on 1 pc is excellent, playback on my other pc is bad...video skips and stops. Same ver of quicktime. I have no idea what to do. Of course, the PC with problems is the pc I need to work! (NOte: I did Codec: QuickTime:Animations at 30fps for best quality)
Furthermore: The pc that isnt working 1st had QuickTimeAlternative installed, then I installed Quicktime afterwards. I then uninstalled QTAlt, then QT and reinstalled QT...Iwonder if there is still something lingering around.

The output from blender is a very large file. You'll need to run it through another app (read through the thread as there are several mentioned, and I can't remember the names of them right now). I bet the file you're trying to view is several hundred megs in size. After I worked on mine is was 800+ MB, but only 3 MB after I reconverted it and added the audio.

There are also the links to the audio clip to add to the file in this thread.

The output from blender is a very large file. You'll need to run it through another app (read through the thread as there are several mentioned, and I can't remember the names of them right now). I bet the file you're trying to view is several hundred megs in size. After I worked on mine is was 800+ MB, but only 3 MB after I reconverted it and added the audio.

There are also the links to the audio clip to add to the file in this thread.

Thanks rgroves. You are right, my file is 800MB. I will read through this thread again for audio and video tips to clean this up.

On the audio - try to get the .ac3 version (5.1 surround) and will sound 1000% better than an MP3 or WAV. You'll need a better program to process the AVI and AC3 file together.

I think I ran my through Movie Maker that's part of WinXP, but it was only to see if it came out right.

Now the Disney intro (not sure if it's in the thread or another), the sound is fantastic and almost blows us off the couch if I forget to turn down the volume.

Ok, first of all, kudos to all of you that have provided help here and have shared your experiences. Hats off to those who can do blender from scratch.

I have finally got to the point where all I have left to do is one last thing. I took the Universal Studio blender file and updated to my wording :). Output was done in AVI-Codec Default 852x480

I extracted the audio (using DVD Audio Extractor) for Universal Studio(from Casino), myself :D.

I then combined video and audio (using AVI-Mux GUI) :D:D.

Now I am left with an 800+MB file .AVI that plays beautifully on my Core 2 Duo XPS 410. However, it stutters on my laptop (which is what I need to have working)

I downloaded AVI DeMux, but here I am left clueless as to get this final rendition compressed. What do I need to do in AVI DeMux to get this compressed with good quality! Or should I be using some other software to compress?

Ok, first of all, kudos to all of you that have provided help here and have shared your experiences. Hats off to those who can do blender from scratch.

I have finally got to the point where all I have left to do is one last thing. I took the Universal Studio blender file and updated to my wording :). Output was done in AVI-Codec Default 852x480

I extracted the audio (using DVD Audio Extractor) for Universal Studio(from Casino), myself :D.

I then combined video and audio (using AVI-Mux GUI) :D:D.

Now I am left with an 800+MB file .AVI that plays beautifully on my Core 2 Duo XPS 410. However, it stutters on my laptop (which is what I need to have working)

I downloaded AVI DeMux, but here I am left clueless as to get this final rendition compressed. What do I need to do in AVI DeMux to get this compressed with good quality! Or should I be using some other software to compress?

Congrats!
I wouldn't worry about the playback on your laptop. I'm sure it will, once put into a DVD format, play stutter free.

Can't help you with the AVI DeMux...never heard of it myself.
You don't have a DVD burn software like Roxio or Nero?

-t

Congrats!
I wouldn't worry about the playback on your laptop. I'm sure it will, once put into a DVD format, play stutter free.

Can't help you with the AVI DeMux...never heard of it myself.
You don't have a DVD burn software like Roxio or Nero?

-t

Thanks. I did just that, used Windows DVD Maker. I didnt like how it forced the DVD Menu or only non-menu option was continuous loop. So I just took the VOB file that matched my Intro and put that on my laptop. Now I have a compressed Intro of about 23MB instead of 800MB and the quality is very good.

Awesome, just awesome.

Now I need to find me some high quality (lets all go to the lobby) intros and other stuff too.

:)

I would like to have my version of the modified blender for the Universal Studio intro show the "glow" behind the earth right when the music hits at the time the 2nd line of text appears. However, I can find the 2 circle objects that represent that effect, but I just cant figure out how to change the timing from the frame those circles will appear.

Can anyone offer some tips on what to adjust to make this happen?

I would like to have my version of the modified blender for the Universal Studio intro show the "glow" behind the earth right when the music hits at the time the 2nd line of text appears. However, I can find the 2 circle objects that represent that effect, but I just cant figure out how to change the timing from the frame those circles will appear.


Can anyone offer some tips on what to adjust to make this happen?

bump..anyone?

Anybody have a sample .mov? I'd love to see this?

I may have to download Blender and make one for MyPreMovie...

kezug -

When I aplied the universal ac3 file to the resulting avi file, the timning was already perfect. I didn't do anything other than what is already in all of the instructions found here.

Tom

Thanks to Mike for the GREAT tutorial, FANTASTIC work!!!

Ok, so I've done this several times now and I'm not quite sure where the SQUASH is happening, but as you can see, my version gets SQUASHED horizontally when I output the final file:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPagxZ4Ozx4

It looks like it's still 16:9 in DVD-Lab Pro2, but when it gets output it's not quite right. Anyone else come across this? I use DVD-Lab to combine the ac3 audio file and the .vob file together....is there a setting i'm missing??

-Ss

hi all,

i'm new here and just started using blender. i was able to do the fox intro, but i'm having a difficult time doing the universal and i wanted to be able to use it this weekend. any help would be appreciated.

trying to put:
ULTIMATE SOUNDS DJS

tnx in advance.

mike

i got it, tnx anyway.

mike

I've been getting a few e-mails lately from folks lookiing for help, so I'd thought I'd give this a bump...


http://falzonvideo.com/vid/0501.jpg

I've created a new blender file with and some step by step instructions to customize it.

Template -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/UniversalNewTemplate.blend

Instructions -

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Universal%20Blender%20Instructions.doc

Good luck!

Mike

I've been getting a few e-mails lately from folks lookiing for help, so I'd thought I'd give this a bump...

First, make sure you are following the instructions precisely...but let me guess, are you stuck here:
• Back in the Shapes Tab, left click on the bar next to the 1.00 (it should stay at 1.00, but this will add another key frame).

This had me messed up for a while. You must always start completely over with the original when you mess up. Keep that in mind.
As for that step above. I am still not sure how I got mine to work, but it does, just keep at it and you will get it to work...eventually.

How can I remove the stars in the back of universal animation. Any help is appreciated, and thanks.

I have tried reading through these forums, but can't find the info...

I have toyed with blender, but can't figure out how to do the final saving, or rendering to do the save....

I have gotten it to render 1 part of the scene...

I am using the final death star one....
Wanted to use the one with the explosion, but it isn't available....

Please steer me in the path to get it to be a avi, or something similar...

TIA...

Thank you so much for the information and Blender file available in the thread. Adding this to my home theater setup adds that extra something that is just so cool.

And to be able to do this on Linux and MythTV is just awesome. When all is said and done my intro AVI file is 15 meg, looks and sounds great as I was able to get the AC3 audio from one of my own DVD movies (Field of Dreams).

Thanks again as the hard work was creating the Blender file and offering directions on how to customize it. The rest of the Linux stuff was easy for me, no way I would have this without the kind people in this thread!!

If anyone needs help getting this going on Linux or MythTV or anyone wants the AC3 file, PM me or ask away here.

Many thanks that i am a member of this great mega forum.
And thanks to MikeFalz for all the great work.

Happy New Year 2008.

Going right back to the first post there was a theater curtain opening blender file. I have tried to render it and it doesn't seem to work (I think someone said it was incomplete) I just wondered if anyone had a version that worked or knows what needs to be done to correct it? Steve

Going right back to the first post there was a theater curtain opening blender file. I have tried to render it and it doesn't seem to work (I think someone said it was incomplete) I just wondered if anyone had a version that worked or knows what needs to be done to correct it? Steve


What was the problem you had? I had a problem with the lights rendering on the curtain properly. I tried several different versions of Blender, but with no luck.

If I remember mine got part of the way through the render and then it stopped I have tried a copule of versions of blender as well but no joy. I did drop peerless productions an email but didn't hear anything. Steve

Yeah I had emailed him as well adn the response I received was very hands off. No help unfortunately.

Hi:

I love this site! I got the universal logo rendered and it looks great. My problem is where can I get the intro music to go with it? I searched this thread, but couldn't seem to find where to get it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi:

I love this site! I got the universal logo rendered and it looks great. My problem is where can I get the intro music to go with it? I searched this thread, but couldn't seem to find where to get it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You can go to http://www.woodyfamilycinema.com/projects.asp I have sound with most of the projects.

Thanks for the response...greatly appreciated!

I have just tried rendering both the universal and the fox intro in HD and both avi files failed to open. All I did was select HD which set the dimensions to 1920x1080 and hit render animation. I got an unsupported format or damaged file error message. I tried changing from avi codec to avi uncompressed but it doesn't make a difference - does anyone have any advice? Steve

I'm wondering are you naming the file with the .avi file extension? If not, try doing that. and what program are you using to attempt to play back the file?

Adam

Hi Adam, thanks for responding. the file had a .avi extension and I tried sony Vegas, Premier Pro, Quicktime and WMP which had slighlty different errors. I had an out of memory error on WMP, Vegas and Premier gave me a this file is corrupt message, quicktime hung. The File rendered OK in SD (PAL). I tried non-compressed and DV compression. The file is currently rendering to a JPG fine? Steve

Blender appears to be unstable on Vista. Is anybody using Vista? What's the common OS that you guys are using?

Blender appears to be unstable on Vista. Is anybody using Vista? What's the common OS that you guys are using?

I never tried the universal on vista, but i did the fox, disney and touchstone ones with blender on vista with no problems

Blender appears to be unstable on Vista. Is anybody using Vista? What's the common OS that you guys are using?
I have rendered all my projects with Vista, it is the only OS I have. The only one I have had problems with is when I used the deathstar instead of the world for the universal project. It rendered fine, but I could never get it compressed into divx. I don't think that was a vista problem though.

I use vista wtih 2gb of RAM and blender. The universal project is fairly small compared to other things I have played with. I usually render as uncomprsed avi. To me, your problem sounds like a codec problem with your computer and playback. Do you have the opportunity to try playing back the file on a different computer?

Adam

How can I save my animation? so I can play it on a power point or something?

To save the animation. You need to click on the scene panel, it looks like a little picture frame icon. (F10)

the top box under output is where you specify file anme and the in the anim tab make sure you have the right frames to render and in format, you'll want to pick a video format, like uncompressed avi.

finally, click on the anim button.

Adam

Does anyone have the Universal AC3 file that I can either download or possibly email to me. Any Universal DVD's that I have are the older logo and no music at all. Thanks.

I'm done with mine. The High Def is rendering. Here's a look....

http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/0310.jpg

can you send me the .blend file you used,if you still have it? my email is " toxicproductions@inbox.com"


-thanks in advance

can you send me the .blend file you used,if you still have it? my email is " toxicproductions@inbox.com"


-thanks in advance

You can look at the blender projects in my sig to get most files you need. :)