Universal Style Animation/Logo [Text View]

w84no1

01-09-07, 01:44 PM

Thanks to Colin Levy of Peerless Productions (http://www.peerlessproductions.com/animation.html), I have a blender file that we might be able to edit so that everyone that made their own Fox style intro/logo can make their own Universal style logo.

Attached are the zip files. Unzip the files into a directory and open the .blend file with blender. Remember these files are for personal use only.

I have posted this in the hopes that someone could take these files and make a tutorial on how to create your own Universal style logo, like the Fox one. I have looked at the file and cannot figure out how to change the text.

Colin also send me the .blend files for the theatercurtain and clapbaord animations on his site. Take a look.

PamW

01-09-07, 03:51 PM

w84no1,

I could not get the "Earth Map" to download. Anyone else having the problem?

GPowers

01-09-07, 05:29 PM

Right clicked them and saved the target file. They download in seconds! No problems.

Rickyvr6

01-09-07, 07:10 PM

Can someone post instructions please?

PamW

01-09-07, 07:12 PM

Thanks! Got it.

greighn

01-09-07, 08:11 PM

w84no1,

Could you post a link to the theater curtain files?

Thanks a lot for doing this!!

-Gary.

w84no1

01-09-07, 09:25 PM

w84no1,

Could you post a link to the theater curtain files?

Thanks a lot for doing this!!

-Gary.

I added it to the first post.

w84no1

01-09-07, 09:26 PM

Here are the clapboard files.

Again for personal use only!

Jawhn

01-09-07, 10:55 PM

Where's Reaper when you need him?

w84no1

01-10-07, 09:43 AM

Anyone have any luck changing the text? Blender is cool, but way over my head :)

latntekky

01-10-07, 02:39 PM

Can somebody post maybe a screen cap or a vid file for example.
I dont have blender installed anymore. Im interested in what it looks like first.

w84no1

01-10-07, 03:03 PM

Can somebody post maybe a screen cap or a vid file for example.
I dont have blender installed anymore. Im interested in what it looks like first.
http://www.peerlessproductions.com/animation.html
at the very bottom, click on the image to see the video

Makomachine

01-10-07, 04:50 PM

How do people integrate these intros into the beginning of their moving watching experience?

w84no1

01-10-07, 05:26 PM

How do people integrate these intros into the beginning of their moving watching experience?

There are lots of ways. I use a Xbox running Xbox Media Center, make a playlist with the intro and the movie in it. Some people add it to the beginning of their DVDs and others have a separate DVD player for their intros or they use HTPCs.

Makomachine

01-10-07, 05:28 PM

Can you do HD intros via HTPC? Guess I need to research that more. I'd like to have something fully automated as an intro when I play an HD-DVD in the new HT.

latntekky

01-12-07, 08:13 AM

ya reaper is definatly needed for this thread.
anybody figure out how to slow down the animations. the clip goes too fast for my audio intro. im looking for a way to slow down the camera animation

jeffczyz

01-12-07, 02:32 PM

I'm going to take a look at this over the weekend. I may not be able to get it together in Blender, but I may be able to import it to another 3d and do something.

Jeff

Steve Scherrer

01-15-07, 04:41 PM

I'm going to take a look at this over the weekend. I may not be able to get it together in Blender, but I may be able to import it to another 3d and do something.

Jeff

Great--looking forward to it.

htomei22

01-15-07, 05:01 PM

The theater curtain animation is VERY cool. Thanks.

htomei

HalloweenBuys

01-15-07, 08:01 PM

Looks like you were only given an incomplete template to work with at least for the Curtain. Guess it is literally back to the drawing board. :rolleyes:

Still it was nice of Peerless to give you at least that much of their work.

Thank you for sharing, it is appreciated.

jeffczyz

01-16-07, 08:56 AM

OK, I threw this together VERY quickly so I know there are some things that need to be tweaked. First, the aspect ratio is a bit off so the earth is a bit squished. I also need to tweak the colors and fonts of the text, but all in all I spent about 5 minutes on this and it took about 15 minutes to render.

UPDATE: I added a second version that has a glow behind the text and earth and fixed the aspect ratio issue.

In any event, take a look.

http://www.inflixht.com/demos/universal.html

w84no1

01-16-07, 09:12 AM

OK, I threw this together VERY quickly so I know there are some things that need to be tweaked. First, the aspect ratio is a bit off so the earth is a bit squished. I also need to tweak the colors and fonts of the text, but all in all I spent about 5 minutes on this and it took about 15 minutes to render.

In any event, take a look.

http://www.inflixht.com/demos/universal.html

Looks good, but is it easy to edit in After Effects? I have never used it before.

jeffczyz

01-16-07, 09:56 AM

I used After Effects plus a third party plug-in. Using those, it was very easy. However, if you don't own after effects or the plug-in it would be expensive to purchase.

I'd be open to creating some intros if there was enough interest. I could either just output the AVI without sound or add some sound and make it more complete.

If there's interest, let me know.

jeffczyz

01-17-07, 07:16 AM

I made a few changes and added a different version with a glow behind the text and earth. I've also fixed the aspect ratio issue.

http://www.inflixht.com/demos/universal.html

Dcostanza

01-17-07, 07:23 AM

Jeffczyz,
Nice job on the rendering...I'd like to take you up on your offer.

Best regards
Don

w84no1

01-17-07, 08:51 AM

I made a few changes and added a different version with a glow behind the text and earth. I've also fixed the aspect ratio issue.

http://www.inflixht.com/demos/universal.html

Count me in as being interested.

jeffczyz

01-17-07, 02:10 PM

OK. I'll need some additional info to get the process rolling on this.

First, with or without the glow? I'll attempt to recreated their bumper as close as possible.

Sound or NoSound? Obviously I can't use their sound, but I may be able to find something similiar.

Finally, Text Customization. 3 Words or no more than 17 characters/spaces will really fit without having tweak each rendering.

Once we nail those down I can get started. After I fine tune the intro it will take about 5 minutes to update each text customization and about 20-40 minutes for each one to render.

mig1868

01-17-07, 05:06 PM

jeffczyx,

I would be interested in getting one of these.
glow, without sound
WELLINGTON CINEMA

Thanks, Mike

bike potato

01-17-07, 06:20 PM

Wow - great work. I would love one as well with the glow effect and no sound.

VILLA NEGRETE

coolhand

01-17-07, 06:54 PM

Oh man Jeff you rock. I would love one with glow effect and sound of some sort, though if its any extra work on your part I could probably manage the sound.

Hurricane Home Theater

Thanks,
Chris

jeffczyz

01-17-07, 08:03 PM

I'm going to fine tune the animation a bit more. In digging around, I've seen a few variations of the Univeral animation. I'll work those out and probably have something posted this weekend with a final cut.

Dcostanza

01-19-07, 12:03 AM

jeffczyz,
If the offer still stands, my theater is Cinema Paradiso. The glow has a very nice effect.

Best regards
Don

jeffczyz

01-19-07, 08:14 AM

Yes. I'll post later this weekend with all of the details.

mbee

01-19-07, 11:02 AM

Well, I'm new to all this and found the Fox logo thread. WOW. It's great that someone puts a lot of time in and lets others benefit, many thanks to reaper and blazer003.

I've had a play with the universal logo posted and from what I can tell the text is actually an object so cannot be edited. Blender seems way too complicated to get my head around creating another text object. If anyone knows how, please let us know.

Magius

01-19-07, 11:20 AM

MBee,
I'm in the same boat as you, and due to this thread I recently hunted down the Fox thread and made myself a Fox style intro. I was diasappointed to find out, as you did, that the "text" in the Universal file is actually a mesh, and cannot be edited directly.

In doing some further searching, however, I stumbled across a tutorial on how to make a Universal style intro from scratch: http://kahuna.clayton.edu/~jbrooks/blender/tutorials/universal/

The tutorial is written for a much older version of Blender, but it seemed easy enough to follow along (conceptually, I haven't actually *tried* it yet). I was hoping that though I've never used Blender before, I might be able to figure out how to use the techniques from this tutorial to create a new Text/Mesh in the Peerless intro and circle it around the world. Haven't tried yet as I've been busy with work, but it should definately be possible if someone has previous blender experience. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will figure this out and post a tutorial like for the Fox intro.

I'm psyched to see that Jeff has figured out a workaround using aftereffects. Seeing how his intros are coming out I may even just request him to make me one rather than spend days or worse trying to edit the Peerless file myself. I've never done anthing like this before, so without a step by step guide like in the Fox intro I'll probably end up nowhere.

Anyway I primarily just wanted to share that tutorial in case anyone else feels adventurous and wants to see what they can do on their own. Thanks again to Jeff for everything you're contributing to this thread!

w84no1

01-19-07, 11:56 AM

movieguy2001

01-19-07, 01:42 PM

jeffczyz,

Add me to the list of interested people. My Theater Name is "Capital Cinema and Drafthouse". If thats too long, "Captial Cinema" will do. Thanks for you working on seeing if this can be done.

MikeFalz

01-19-07, 02:05 PM

After many hours of work (I had no idea had to use blender beyond modifying the Fox logo from the other thread) I've changed the Peerless logo to my own in the blender file.

It involved many steps but basically you have to take a text object and apply all the characteristics of the existing logo to it.

Here's the thing, this is not the completed blender file used to make Universal animation posted on the Peerless site. The logo is missing the mettallic reflection. The camera movement is different. The one on the site starts at the top of the globe and moves to the side as the logo rolls around. This one starts at the side. Lastly, there's no background. I added a basic starfield which looks pretty good, but the one on the site has a milkyway / nebula look to it.

Any chance of getting the final blender file from peerless?

mbee

01-19-07, 02:07 PM

Magius,

Thanks very much foe that link. All this has inspired me to want to be able to use blender a little so I will work through the tutorial when I get time. Should be a good lesson for the future. It's always nice to know how to change something if you have to.

Adobe After Effects sounds easier to work with. I have looked at Serif Impactplus as I love the Movieplus editing software they do. Seems to be a simplified 3D rendering app which would probably do most of what I want. Anyone used it?

w84no1

01-19-07, 02:21 PM

Any chance of getting the final blender file from peerless?

Those are all the files I was sent. Sorry :(

Magius

01-19-07, 02:42 PM

I've been working in Blender for the last 2 hours using the tutorial that I posted and trying to cook something up from scratch. I was hoping if I got familiar enough with the concepts I could edit the Peerless file, but with what MikeFalz has said it seems like the file we have is only half as nice as the finished product on Peerless' website.

Anyway for the benefit of any others that are going to play in blender on their own, I thought I'd post back what I've been able to do, and where I'm getting stuck:

In the tutorial that I linked to, where it says to press F9 for vertex options, that hotkey doesnt seem to be correct anymore. In searching around I am unable to find anywhere to obey the instruction to "Set Ext1 to 0.100. This gives a 3d look to the text." I just skipped over this step

Had a little trouble getting the camera in the right spot. Best way I found to do it was to delete the existing camera, shift-s my cursor to the appropriate place on the grid, and space-add-camera. That seems to get perfect placement without the frustration.

On page 3 when "bending" the text I am having trouble making it stick. I am able to bend it using shift-W, and with all vertices selected I set the key with i->mesh. As soon as I press TAB to get out of edit mode though the text straightens back out. pressing TAB repeatedly goes back and forth between edit mode (yellow vertices) with curved text, and object mode (pink vertices) with straight text. Nothing I can do to the pink text will make it curve, and if you i->mesh on the pink it will overwrite the cuve of the yellow!!! In any case I could not get the text to stay bent, so I skipped this step as well.

A side note, in that the F6 hotkey doesnt seem to bring up the IPO curves like the tutorial says, but since I skipped the text curving, I skipped this portion as well.

After much trial and error I managed to get the rotations on Page 4 working. There is no Add->IKA anymore, but I figured out it is Add->Armature and then Add->Bone. Another note, I have no idea why, but almost every time I do the rotation of the bone it wants to animate rotating to the LEFT of the world. I tried 6-8 times rotating it around, setting keys, and restoring old saves, and eventually lucked out and it rotated to the right like it should. No idea what I did different though...

As far as the IPO charts for the indefinate earth rotation, I substituted in a rot key at frame 500 that continues the earth rotating from 90 to 180 degrees. Nobody is going to render this animation out to 500 frames, so in effect it's the same "indefinate" rotation, just without knowing how to open the IPO charts :)

Finally, applying materials and textures. All I've done here is apply the Peerless earth map texture to my sphere. It was a painstaking process and I'm not even sure how I did it, but it's there. Hopefully it's not this difficult to apply materials to my text, but for now I'm calling it quits.

If anyone else is fighting their way through the linked tutorial please share your successes and troubles, maybe we can all help each other overcome the hurdles. And if anyone knows how to fix the steps that I wasn't able to get (ie: text bending) PLEASE let me know. Thanks alot!!!

Magius

01-19-07, 03:03 PM

I forgot to mention before that I've had no luck whatsoever figuring out lamps. The tutorial that I linked makes no mention of lamps, and I have no idea how to brighten up this scene. I've attached what my current render looks like just as an example for anyone curious about pursuing this.

The text says "Herndon Theaters", and the sole source of light is the default lamp that blender adds to all new projects. I've fiddled with its parameters but nothing useful has come of it yet. Oh and the text "Feature Presentation" I was going to have fade in at the end of the animation, like the "An MCA Company" from the tutorial. I thought it was a nice addition, though some may disagree :)

As I said before let me know how it's going for anyone else giving this a try. Misery does love company after all.

atagert

01-19-07, 03:10 PM

Well, I have been playing with the clipboard blender file. I got some text on the file. I'm trying to post the file so you all can see what I did. However, the avi file is right now 118mb, so first is compression.

Adam

atagert

01-19-07, 03:21 PM

Ok, I got a video

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/clipboard.wmv

I can post the blender file too, if anyone wants it.

Adam

w84no1

01-19-07, 03:47 PM

Ok, I got a video

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/clipboard.wmv

I can post the blender file too, if anyone wants it.

Adam

Yes, please post your blender file. Good job!

atagert

01-19-07, 05:03 PM

Thanks.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/clapboard_text.zip

There's the file. You should be able to edit the text. I'm not particuarly good wrting a description on how to do that. This file was create by trial and error. I successfully got through the fox blender file and then attempted this. I'm not particularly sure how I got to this point.

Adam

Magius

01-20-07, 09:43 AM

I just thought I'd post an update to where I was on following the linked tutorial from scratch. I still haven't figured out proper lighting with the lamps, but I've been able to lighten up the area a bit with 3-4 different types of lamps directly behind the camera. Also I found out the hard way that the earth I drew is larger than the earth in the tutorial (duh, my text is much longer), so the camera initiates inside my sphere before popping out around frame 100. I had to tweak the camera settings to get rid of that problem and seeing as I don't know what I'm doing I'm 90% sure I horked up the animation :) If only it wouldn't take me 20 or so hours of rendering to verify how bad it looks :(

Anyway I've attached 2 pictures just to demonstrate the progress that I've made. One is at Frame 150 just after the text begins to show from behind the earth, the other is at frame 250 where everything is in it's final place. I intended on animating 500 frames at 25fps but in the 2nd set of 250 frames only the earth will rotate while everything else is fixed.

So is anyone else trying this or am I the only sucker dumb enough to think I might eventually figure it out? :)

Magius

01-20-07, 10:00 AM

Oh I forgot to mention that there may be a solution for those of us wanting a customizable template for this animation. The biggest problem with customizing the Peerless .blend file is that the "text" is actually a mesh, as stated previously. This is necessary I found out in order to get the text to curve when it is behind the earth, before straightening out once it's back in front. Seeing as I haven't been able to figure out how to curve my mesh anyway and I simply skip that step (see previous post on the troubles I'm having) there's probably no need to convert the text to a mesh.

I would imagine that if we collectively figured out the last few issues in the tutorial that I linked, specifically problems with camera position and lighting, we could leave the text as text and distribute it for people to customize.

Worst case is if their Theater name is abnormally long or short they might have to resize the earth a bit and hope it doesnt hork up the camera position (ie: see my last post).

I might play with this idea a little later and make sure that the straight text can be linked to an armature bone and given a material/texture, otherwise there's no reason this shouldn't work.

atagert

01-20-07, 10:02 AM

I'm not trying it right now. I'm playing with the other files. I seem to be having problems with the curtians on the theater file. The open as soon as the rendering starts, and it doesn't matter which frame, I'm on.

Do you think it matters that I don't have Python installed? Do any of you?

adam

Magius

01-20-07, 11:20 AM

Atagert,
I do not have Python installed either, but I think that the curtains in that file are working for me. I just opened it up and did an "alt-a" for a quick animation, and they seem to start pulling apart around frame 180-200 as the camera zooms towards them. I'm not sure why yours wouldn't do the same.

Back on the Universal intro subject, I started over and now have a new version where the text is fully customizable. I've finished the texturing, etc and the sphere is smaller so the camera motion does not get messed up by going inside the sphere. The only thing left to figure out on this is lighting!!

Currently I'm using a system of 5 spherical lamps, one on each "face" of the sphere (except the rear). The lighting seems to be pretty good towards the end of the animation, but in the beginning when the camera is zoomed in there's just not enough light in the scene.

I'm going to spend some time examining the properties of the lamps that Peerless uses, and see if I can add something similar to my .blend file. I'll upload the file a little later after I try this so people can start tweaking it to their liking. Wish me luck!

jeffczyz

01-20-07, 11:48 AM

Thanks for everyone who has posted an interest and PM'd me to get on the list with their theater names. I've got a few projects I'm working through this weekend and should have the final animation wrapped up later today or by tomorrow morning.

I'll post a link to the final animation when it's ready.

Jeff

Magius

01-20-07, 12:08 PM

Finally!

For anyone looking to make their own intro in Blender I think I've finally gotten it. Extrapolating positions and intensities from the lamps in Peerless' file I was able to get the lighting correct in my own file. :D

I'm attaching the .blend file as well as a few renderings that show what it should look like. The "Herndon Theaters" and "Feature Presentation" text are both editable just like the FOX style intro. (ie: right click, press tab, backspace the text, and type in what you want.) Feature Presentation can be removed if it doesn't suit your fancy, simply right click, press delete, and then confirm the deletion. This text is invisible until Frame 250 when it fades in over 20 frames. After frame 270 everything in the animation is static except for the earth which I have spinning at constant velocity until frame 750 (30 seconds, as rendered at 25fps).

A word of advice: My Theater string is 16 characters, so if yours is much larger or smaller I would recommend rescaling your text such that it's width is roughly the same as mine. To do this, after you've typed in your text press tab so that it turns pink. Hold the left mouse button down over the text and wiggle the mouse up and down until it begins to change size. Move the mouse around until the size seems right and click the left mouse button to set it in place. When you're done ensure the text gets recentered by pressing the "centre" button on the "curve and surface" panel which is under the editing panels (press F9 to bring this panel up).

That should be all there is to it. Please keep in mind I have not rendered the full animation yet as on my junk machine it would take over 20 hours. I've never used Blender or done any 3D graphics until earlier this week so there's no guarantee that the full thing will render properly. Take a look at the screenshots to get an idea of what it *should* look like. If there's any questions I'll do my best, but again this is all brand new to me too.

Magius

01-20-07, 12:09 PM

Can only attach 3 files so here are the other 2 screenshots. I'm going to see if I can somehow add a lens flare like in the original animation, and perhaps find a nicer background texture than the purple nebula thing, but other than that this puppy's about done.

Let me know what you guys think!

mbee

01-20-07, 12:12 PM

Magius
Wish I had the time to play around at the moment, looks like your nearly there. Well done so far.

Just a thought, but have you learnt enough yet to modify the peerless file. i.e. delete the text object and add a new text that comes around the earth. That way your lighting is already there.
How does the background look? On the tutorial version it is static in the frame which is a little unnatural, the peerless version seems to move with the earth.
Can't wait to see the finished version.

You posted it while I was typing! Will play around with it later. Many thanks.

Magius

01-20-07, 12:46 PM

Sorry for the flood of posts, but I just realized that the textures for the earth and background are not stored along with the blender file, so you'll need to download those as well and reapply them.

The earth texture I'm using is the Peerless file, and the starfield is the one from the tutorial. Feel free to find better textures if you prefer. I would have attached them as a .zip but it said the file was too large, so just scroll up and download them if you need them.

To reapply the textures you'll have to right click on the earth in the .blend file then press F6. This brings up the texture options panel. In the middle you'll see a button called "load image", simply click that and then browse to your image. All the other texture settings should have been saved.

For the background it's a similar process, but first you'll have to click on the "world buttons" button, which is just left of the current frame display and looks like an earth. Once you've pressed the button press F6 and load the starfield texture similar to how you loaded the earth texture.

I'm currently rendering the animation at 200x100 resolution (should only take 15 minutes at that size :) ) to make sure that there's no funny glitches. I don't have anywhere to host it but I'll let you know what it looks like when it's done.

atagert

01-20-07, 01:43 PM

Good work Magius.

I'll definately play with it, once my other graphics render.

Thanks.

Adam

Magius

01-20-07, 02:25 PM

Well after breaking for lunch and a walk around the neighborhood with my dog here's my observations on the test clip I rendered.

The flat text just doesn't look good at all at the right-most point where it it is rolling around the earth and is parallel with the camera's view. Curved text is orders of magnitude better looking, but to curve the text it has to be a mesh, and a mesh isn't editable, so everyone would have to create their own from scratch...

The background is a bit static, as mbee pointed out. I have no idea if anything can be done about that, as Peerless' .blend file doesn't have the background texture settings included. I did however find a nice graphic of the Orion nebula to substitute in the back. It's still static, but I think it looks good enough. I'll probably just wind up picking the best looking nebula picture I can find and dealing with it being static.

I'm going to change the starting rotational position of the earth to make the opening part of the clip more exciting. For the first 4-5 seconds all you can see is water, so I didn't like that. In the real Universal clip it's primarily Africa that you fly past, so I may even try to do the same thing.

Finally, in my opinion the "Feature Presentation" text is popping up to quickly. I'm going to delay it's appearance until around frame 300-325, rather than the 275 that it's at now.

Haven't tried the lens flare yet, but hopefully there'll be a tutorial out there when I get around to looking for it.

atagert

01-20-07, 02:33 PM

The clipboard file has a lens flare in it that moves, too.

Adam

Magius

01-20-07, 03:51 PM

Well I managed to fix just about everything that was wrong with my first cut at this.

The earth's rotation is much better now, with the flyby starting over what appears to be the thailand area, and by the end of the clip (frame 500) the Americas are centered on the globe, so no wasted frames trailing off into the pacific ocean. :D

I also delayed the popping up of the "Feature Presentation" text, and extruded both this and the Theater name to give them a 3D look.

Best of all I MANAGED TO GET THE TEXT TO CURVE / UNCURVE!!!. I was able to find the IPO sequence window and figure out why I couldn't get the mesh key to stick on the curved text before. With some trial and error it worked out great. The only problem is that this can only be done on a mesh, so people would have to edit the text version and then create the mesh and the bending animation by themselves. If there's anyone out there actually working with the file I'll be glad to write up some pointers on how to do this. Check out the 2 new screenshots to see how much better the effect is.

Next up I've still got to try the lens flare, but I'm really psyched about how quickly this has come along.

mbee

01-20-07, 04:29 PM

I'm currently rendering the animation at 200x100 resolution (should only take 15 minutes at that size :) ) to make sure that there's no funny glitches. I don't have anywhere to host it but I'll let you know what it looks like when it's done.

If you want I could probably put it somewhere for people to download. Be good to see the result of all your work

Magius

01-20-07, 04:48 PM

Thanks for the offer mbee. This one is actually so small that I can upload it to the thread. I had to add a .zip extension to make the forum accept it, but just download and remove the .zip to watch the .avi clip. It's in Windows Media 9 format because that's the most standard thing my virtualdubmod could output (it seems to be ignoring all my other codecs :rolleyes: )

The quality is extremely poor but it's just a demo to see how the animation turned out. I'm still planning on tweaking this to slow down the animation a bit and eventually attempt a lens flare at the beginning.

Let me know what you think!

w84no1

01-20-07, 04:56 PM

Awesome work, I knew it was a good idea to post the first couple of files to get everyone interested.

I am rendering it now, but yes if you could post some pointers on the mesh and curved text that would be great.

Thanks for all the work you have done.

mbee

01-20-07, 05:03 PM

Excellent work, worth playing with and rendering. That's the next few spare hours gone then.

atagert

01-20-07, 05:34 PM

Few hours? Its more like a few days of spare CPU time. Of course, when I do my final render, I turn on stuff like 8 pass anti-aliasing.

Adam

Magius

01-20-07, 08:17 PM

OK last update for a while I promise. This time I'm going to need a couple of opinions. I started from a clean slate (yikes, this is at least the 6th time I've started over from an empty project today!) and made a few minor changes such as slowing down the animation slightly. I also added a lens flare at the beginning and a halo effect at the end. Please let me know what you think of the new effects (positive or negative) as I'm not sure if I like them or not.

I'll post some tips on the mesh curving a little later at w84no1's request, and if anyone else has any specific questions I'll try my best to help. In case you're joining the thread late I'm not using Peerless' file, I created my own from scratch using a very helpful tutorial that is linked above. If you're working in Peerless' file it might be harder for me to help because I'm as new to this as everyone else.

I'm going to really feel like a doof when Jeff comes in tomorrow with a couple beautiful renders that put mine to shame and I've wasted my entire Saturday struggling with this :D

w84no1

01-20-07, 09:36 PM

mbee

01-21-07, 05:38 AM

Good work Magius.
One comment and I don't want to add to your work. You have the camera tracking the text which has the earth moving to the left then back to the centre. As I have done nothing yet I don't know how difficult the camera settings are. What about the camera pulling back and tracking the earth. i.e. from frame 1 the camera zooms out while centering on the earth.

Looks like you've spent a lot of time on it already.

Magius

01-21-07, 06:35 AM

mbee, I have to admit that I haven't played much with the camera settings. I'm just using the 2 -3 anchor points given in the tutorial and letting Blender move the camera from point to point. My very first .blend file got screwed up because my earth was too large, hence the camera's starting position was inside the earth. I did tweak the camera settings a bit to correct that but then I didn't like the end result as much, so I just started over with a smaller earth and the result is what you see now. There's one spot I'd like to play with where the camera is moving left and it seems to cancel out the earth's rotation visually, I think it's right where the text starts moving to the left as well in the middle of the clip.

w84no1: I haven't actually changed the customizable (text only) version of my .blend file, as I've been working on my own file with the mesh-text. I was planning on either updating the text version for all of you with the new effects, or deleting the mesh from my latest file and replacing it with a text-only theater name for you. I have to say though the text only approach with the straight lettering doesn't look too great compared to making your own mesh and bending it properly. I'll be posting instructions a bit later on how to bend your own mesh starting so everyone can get this looking good.

Magius

01-21-07, 08:49 AM

OK here's an updated .blend file with all the effects (Halo, Lens Flare, etc.) that has customizable text. I've included a Word document describing how to take this file and do everything necessary to render a proper animation and make a curved mesh out of your text.

The "Feature Presentation" text is also editable, but I do not give specific instructions as the process is the same as the main theater text.

You can also delete the halo effect, lens flare, or sub text if those features don't suit you. Simply select the thing you don't like, press delete, then confirm deletion. The halo and lens flare may be hard to find and delete, so here's some pointers:

The Halo is a circle made up of hundreds of dots just inside the diameter of the earth. By zooming in from a camera view (0) on Frame 300+ you should be able to see it, select it, and delete it.

The lens flare is a small group of 4 dots far off to the right of the camera view. Again in frame 300+ from camera view you should be able to see these dots, select, and delete.

I hope these files are helpful to you guys. Please let me know if you have any problems with the instructions. I'm on about my 10th time through starting from an empty project, so it's entirely possible that I've skipped a step that felt natural by now :D Good Luck!!

atagert

01-21-07, 11:04 AM

Maguis, all I can say is WOW!!!!!

Thank-you. I am very impressed.

I am doing a test render right now.

Just a question to anybody. I have a Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, do you think it renders faster with 2 threads or 1?

Adam

MikeFalz

01-21-07, 12:41 PM

jeffczyz

01-21-07, 02:52 PM

For those keeping track, here is the final render of my version. The Flash Video has enhanced the glow effect a bit, it isn't that prominent in the MPP Version.

It takes roughly 30 minutes to render, so I'm going to begin this evening rendering clips for those that have requested them and I'll send a PM when they are available.

I used the Universal text so if anyone want to compare the actual Studio logo vs this one.

Here's the link... http://www.inflixht.com/demos/universal.html

Magius

01-21-07, 03:01 PM

Very nice Mike, you obviously figured out the Peerless file. I'm curious how you did the motion of your own text. Did you use an armature or did you figure out what Peerless did and copy his approach? I'd very much like to know how he's doing it if you indeed figured that out. Are you seriously offering to render files for people, or did you simply mean that you'd create them a .blend to render themselves? If it's the former you must be sitting on a supercomputer! :D

As far as the video sample, I much prefer the halo effect in your render. I'll have to look at the Peerless file again and see if I can figure it out. My own halo effect is a pretty poor substitute in my opinion. I also prefer the earth texture settings in yours. My colors are just so saturated or "solid", it makes the earth slightly fake looking in my opinion.

Ah well, perhaps those things will give me something to experiment with this evening. If I come up with a better solution to either issue I'll post rudimentary instructions on how to tweak my .blend file for those who may be using it.

Atagert,
Thank you for the appreciative feedback. I'm assuming you were able to follow my instructions OK? Please show us how it comes out if you're able to!

MikeFalz

01-21-07, 03:06 PM

I was able to figure out what Peerless did. Once you turn your custom text into a mesh, you have to apply the texture, rotation, and warp curve. It was pretty painful trial and error but I've got it now.

I have a new PC (Duo Core 2.13) so rendering is not big deal. It takes less than an hour at standard def. I'm working on rendering in High Def but it's having problems. It finishes after about 3 1/2 hours but the first few seconds get messed up. I'm going to try again.

Magius

01-21-07, 03:10 PM

Welcome back Jeff, you posted as I was typing!

Your render came out very nice, I really wanted to make the text the way you did, with the white over the gold like the real logo, but I couldn't think up a way to do it without trying to manually draw a mesh in the shape of each letter. I know you used aftereffects, but is there any way in Blender that you can think of to get that kind of effect? If it comes down to it I may just take the manual mesh drawing approach, as I really like the look of the text that way.

As far as the halo being a little prominent in your render I can see what you mean. It doesn't look bad though, especially if as you say it's a little toned down outside of Flash.

Magius

01-21-07, 03:32 PM

Many thanks to Mike and Jeff for posting their renders, it sparked me into trying to fix what I don't like about my own.

Fortunately fixing my old halo effect wound up being simple. See the attached screenshots for the difference. I'll post instructions on how to create this new halo later if there's any interest, but first it's on to some more fixing!

atagert

01-21-07, 03:46 PM

The instruction were very clear. I am right now modifying a few things. I have added a sphere outside of everything, so when you move the camera, the stars react. I have also taken out the blue ring that was there, and inserted a spot light behind the earth that generates a halo.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/stars5.jpg http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/stars4.jpg

As you can see, In the 2nd image, the spot light beam from the light is visible. So, I have to turn that off. Do you know of a simple way just turn off the light after fram 275? Yeah, I know I have an extra a in there.

Adam

Magius

01-21-07, 04:03 PM

Mike, thanks for explaining about the Peerless rotation, I guess it makes sense that you could set rotation keys the same way that I did using an armature, just without the complication of needing an armature! lol, it's funny these things you don't think of until after the fact...

atagert, Wow!! you've really taken this and made it your own, very nice!!
I like the idea of a simple spotlight behind the earth to make a halo, if only I'd thought of that before trying *everything else imaginable* :D Oh well I'm quite happy with my latest halo effect so all's well that ends well I suppose.

As far as the spots of light from the lamps go I've always noticed them there, but never tried to get rid of them. I spent a long time trying to make my own system of lamps work, and eventually just extrapolated positions and powers out of the Peerless file. At this point I'm just happy there's light in the picture, so I'm more than happy to settle with some spots.

Anyway while I'm posting I'll toss up 2 more images of my "fix" for my old earth texture being too saturated. The new one adds clouds to the earth which in my opinion looks much better. It's a matter of opinion I guess, but again if anyone wants to know what I did in detail let me know.

Next up it looks like I'll be painstakingly drawing letter meshes to recreate Jeff's embossed text like the real universal logo. Please Jeff if you're out there and know a shortcut post it for me!

jeffczyz

01-21-07, 06:13 PM

I really don't know anything about Blender so I can't contribute too much on that front. I ended up having to create a new custom edge within Invigorator(AE plugin) to create the text so it looks more like the real universal.

You may be able to recreate something similiar by duplicating the original text, scaling it down and applying a different texture or color to it.

Hope that helps...

atagert

01-21-07, 06:20 PM

Jeff, I was thinking of doing someting similar. Today is the first day, I have try to do anything series in Blender.

Adam

sega_97

01-21-07, 06:24 PM

jeffczyz

01-21-07, 06:33 PM

Here are a couple of pics pre-flash conversion. The text jaggies aren't seen since this is a screen grab they are more apparent.

atagert

01-21-07, 06:48 PM

I'm taking a break for the night. If anybody finds any documentation or knows how modify lamps at certain points on particular frames, or how to make layers appear and disappear, please make a post about it.

Once I get the knicks out of my blend file, I'll post it.

Night.

Adam

zductive

01-21-07, 08:12 PM

Magius - Thanks for the detailed work instruction.

I like the more realistic Earth shot! Would love to see how to do it.

Anyone know how to splice two blender files together. That is, I would like to have a standard up to a point and then be able to add a welcome to our guests that would be completely text based and easily customized.

Any ideas on how to include a photo after frame 525?

Any help with how to add the spot behind the earth would also be appreciated.
I have played with this idea a lot now and nothing good has come from the trials.

2.5 hours render time on 848 x 480 resolution with a 3 GHz pentium.

MikeFalz

01-21-07, 08:18 PM

MikeFalz,

I like the way yours turn out. It looks great. If the offer is still on table, I would appreciate if you can customize your blend file with the following custom text for me.

EMILY CINEMA

Thanks,

Sure. I'll work on it tommorrow. Can I just send you the blender file or do you need it rendered?

Magius

01-21-07, 08:25 PM

Jeff,
Thanks for the idea about scaling down text to try and make the real Universal look. That was the same first idea I had, and unfortunately I failed miserably at it. I actually made some progress at one point by converting text to curves, modifying the vertices as necessary, and then converting to a mesh. Unfortunately that one too failed because I couldn't make it bend like the main text. I gave up on the idea for now but thanks anyway.

Zductive,
The short story about making the earth more realistic is simply adding a second texture to it, with the "clouds" property. I'll gladly post more specifc details later, I just don't have time ot look up my settings and write them up right now. Also, on the subject of combining blender files, I would recommend simply combining the output videos instead if that's possible. In other words, maintain 2 seperate blender files, render them individually, and splice them together in your favorite editing program. Alternatively you might be able to have entirely distinct animations on different layers in blender. I haven't tried it, but you may be able to only render layer 1 for say 500 frames, and then render layer 2 for the next 500 frames, etc. This seems like what atagert wants to do as well, so perhaps it will get figured out sooner or later.

As far as the spot behind the earth goes I can post some instructions later when I post about the clouds effect. Alternatively atagert found a nice effect by simply pointing a spotlight at the rear of the earth. If you like his effect it doesn't sound too hard to accomplish with some clever lamp positioning.

Magius

01-21-07, 08:33 PM

Slightly off topic question for those of you actually rendering these files in blender. I'm using a P4 2.4 GHz (Northwood fortunately) w/ HT enabled, and only 512MB RAM. Renders take abysmally long for me, hence my very low res preview clips which still take ~20 minutes to render. The Fox animation for example took ~20 hours at 800x450. I'm curious what the configs of some of your machines are, and how long a typical render takes so I know what to look forward to on a new machine.

P.S. - Don't laugh at my machine, it's actually only my media server. My only other machine is an HTPC and I'm not building the new Core 2 gaming rig until February :D

MikeFalz

01-21-07, 08:36 PM

With regards to audio, anyone have a quality version of the music used in the tutorial? I found this page..

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

I used the modern version but it is a little long for this simple animation.

atagert

01-21-07, 09:21 PM

I'm using 2 different machines. Main machine is a 3.0ghz P4 hyperthreading with 800mhz bus and 2gb of RAM, the other, which I put the long renders on is a 3.06ghz P4 with hyperthreadding but with a slower bus, also with 2gb of RAM. Took me about 20 hours too to render the Fox one, however, I'm re-rendering it now with 8 pass anti-aliasing, which should be done in about a week (after a day and a half it has done 177 frames). Blender is the only thing I do, that pushes either machine CPU wise. I really wish there was a way that I could have multiple machines rendering different frames and have blender put it all together.

Adam

MikeFalz

01-21-07, 09:44 PM

Hi Def render complete. Check it out...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal%20HD.wmv

volley

01-21-07, 09:54 PM

Hi Def render complete. Check it out...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal%20HD.wmv

Looks good! Rendering a 720x480 now. Any idea if Blender is able to create a 1920x1080 video?

BTW, where did you get your audio? It is a good solid track.

sega_97

01-21-07, 10:26 PM

Yes, the blender file would be fine. Thanks in advance.

Sure. I'll work on it tommorrow. Can I just send you the blender file or do you need it rendered?

Dcostanza

01-21-07, 10:40 PM

the hi-def render is sweet... nice job!

atagert

01-22-07, 12:13 AM

Hi Def render complete. Check it out...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal%20HD.wmv

Impressive. That looks great.

Adam

zductive

01-22-07, 12:17 AM

Three attempts - how busy a background is acceptable?
rosette nebula
original from tutorial
lori orionnebula
(definitely not trying to be true to the universal logo)

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/rosettenebula0525.jpg

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/0525.jpg

lori nebula
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q106/zductive/invitationlogo.jpg

Magius

01-22-07, 05:58 AM

Zductive those backgrounds look cool, I actually like the contrast of the red color in the first one. I'm using an Orion Nebula shot, but I highly considered one of the horsehead nebula as well because of the deep red color. I figured the earth will cover up the horsehead itself, and the rest of the nebula is quite good looking. I really love to see people taking this intro and making it their own with things like "Invitation Only" as the main text. And I was afraid I'd be offending the purists or something when I added "Feature Presentation" to the bottom of my Intro... :D

On another note, for you and any others waiting, here are the instructions for replacing the Halo in my .blend file. Sorry I didn't get to the clouds yet, I tried to bang this one out before work and now I've got to junp in the shower or I'm going to be late.

MikeFalz

01-22-07, 07:24 AM

Looks good! Rendering a 720x480 now. Any idea if Blender is able to create a 1920x1080 video?

BTW, where did you get your audio? It is a good solid track.

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

Although as I mentioned in an ealier post, I would love a solid version of the shorter track...

MikeFalz

01-22-07, 07:26 AM

Yes, the blender file would be fine. Thanks in advance.

Your blender file is ready. PM me your email and I'll send it to you. The only thing you may need to do is re attach the globe jpg to the sphere.

Mike

atagert

01-22-07, 10:04 AM

Three attempts - how busy a background is acceptable?
rosette nebula
original from tutorial
lori orionnebula
(definitely not trying to be true to the universal logo)

Whichever background you choose, you should put a lamp with a similar color in it, so that the reflection in the earth has the same color instead of the white reflection. Just a thought.

Adam

MikeFalz

01-22-07, 11:34 AM

Anyone know how to place a background in blender that's relative to camera position?

I tried a backbuf image, but it never changed perspective based on the movement of the camera. That's why I went with the blender stars.

nevermind, answered my own question...

Magius

01-22-07, 05:51 PM

MikeFalz,
I have the same question and seeing as you seemed to answer it could you please post your solution?
I believe atagert figured out a way to do this with some form of external sphere around the whole scene with a texture mapped to it's inside?

Atagert,
Could you please explain how you did this as I'd like to make the background more dynamic if possible.

Thanks a lot to both of you!

MikeFalz

01-22-07, 06:48 PM

I have not found a perfect solution. I followed the tutorial to add material to the 'world.'
If you choose PAPER, it just sits flat in the background. If you choose REAL, it's position is relative but distorted.

My solution is to use an image of a misty nebula, but no stars. I'm using BLENDER stars ontop of the nebula picture and the effect is pretty cool. I repost after I render it tomorrow.

atagert

01-22-07, 07:30 PM

I created a sphere like the earth. I then made it very very large, so large that it was much further out than any of the lamps. You add the background image as a texture and it works. You can also try doing it with a cylinder, which I did one time.

I actually switched back to the bender stars, because I want the stars to move relative to each other when the camera moves.

currently, I have playing with the halo, trying to simulate the beams that occur in the universal logo, I'm basing my project of the one found on the Serenity HD DVD. Also note the reflectiveness of the text, I'm trying to simulate the gold. At some point, I'm going to add the white letters over the gold.

Oh, I figured out the lamps thing. I can add these objects that create halos too, which are very cool. Anybody know the proper name of them?

My latest render. I know, I restated, and building it to create a template, so the peerless text is still there.
http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/reflextor.wmv

Adam

Magius

01-22-07, 08:55 PM

Thanks for the advice mike and atagert, I'll have to experiment with those techniques and see what comes of it. I don't really like using the Blender stars only because as the camera is moving around they are too "sparkly". I guess it's supposed to look like twinkling, but really the stars just seem to appear and disappear randomly and I don't like the effect as much. This is very visible in atagerts latest render, if you just look off into space, though honestly nobody in their right mind would be focusing off into space when all the action is on the earth and text :). Anyway, the effect isn't "distracting" by any means, it just wasn't my ideal solution.

I do like the idea of adding beams to the halo, though every time I tried to get a similar effect I wasn't pleased with the result. Your latest render looks better than the attempts that I made atagert, so at least you're getting there.

As far as the white on gold text I simply had to give up. Nothing that I did would enable both meshes to get warped the same and still line up all the way around the globe. If someone gets a viable solution to creating this text I'm sure many people here would be thrilled. I think I may even know how to do it, but I would need to be able to combine meshes into a single mesh.

If anyone knows if that last bit is possible (ie: draw 2 meshes then do something such that they become a single mesh) please let me know and I'll try to work out the text problem.

atagert

01-23-07, 12:26 AM

I haven't had a chance to try this yet. But my first idea for the white text is to create the new meshes and then select both and add them to a group.

Adam

w84no1

01-23-07, 09:18 AM

Found a cool site with a blender e-book.

http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205

Chapter 3
Joining Meshes:
To join 2 or more meshes together, Hold down the “Shift” key to select
them, then press “Ctrl” and “J” to join them. They will retain any
materials you have placed on them, but will be one object.

Hope this helps!

Mark Booth

01-23-07, 09:41 AM

Mike,

I'd LOVE a high-def blend file of your Universal-style logo. If it's not too long:

THE BOOTH BIJOU

I'll shoot you a PM with my E-mail!

Thanks!!

Mark

Mark Booth

01-23-07, 09:49 AM

If anyone figures out how to duplicate the Peerless Theater (Seats) Animation, please share. On that one, all we need is a good blend file to render (without text) because we can then use something like iMovie to create our own text field on black and tack it onto the end of the animation. In that regard, a single hi-def blend of the Theater Seats Animation would work for everyone (no need to create a different blend for each theater name).

Thanks!

Mark

atagert

01-23-07, 11:32 AM

Mark, I was looking at that animation earlier. What was wrong with it? I had some issues with the curtains not moving correctly, but that was it.

Adam

Chiahead

01-23-07, 11:49 AM

Magius, thank you so much for all the work you have done and making a clear step by step tutorial for us. It was very clear and easy to understand.

I got some time last night to play and it looks really cool. I am using the full eagle nebula as my background.

I saw a way to brighten the earth without lamps. you can play with the brightness and contrast a little on the earth texture, to get a little brighter planet.

atagert

01-23-07, 12:54 PM

atagert

01-23-07, 12:59 PM

Its called Amb, and emit, they are in the shadders tab under material.

Adam

atagert

01-23-07, 01:10 PM

I have have been working on the end halo. I think, I have one that its pretty decent. I'm happy enough to move onto the next part.

A frame
http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/halo.jpg

Video of the Halo
http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/halodone.wmv

The Blender File
http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/halos3.blend

Adam

MikeFalz

01-23-07, 01:45 PM

Mike,

I'd LOVE a high-def blend file of your Universal-style logo. If it's not too long:

THE BOOTH BIJOU

I'll shoot you a PM with my E-mail!

Thanks!!

Mark

I just sent it out to you. Let me know how you like it!

Mike

atagert

01-23-07, 02:06 PM

I just did the text thing. You should be able to follow Magius instructions and get a finished product.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/text.blend

I am going to render a version and post the results. I welcome suggestions on how to improve the file.

Adam

atagert

01-23-07, 03:41 PM

Ok, here is a video render.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/feature_presentation.wmv

What should be done to it next?

Adam

MikeFalz

01-23-07, 04:11 PM

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

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

Magius

01-23-07, 06:24 PM

Thanks w84no1 for the tip on joining meshes. I likely won't have time to play with my file any more until Friday, but both atagert and I thought that this would be a major step towards getting the white on gold text to work.

Speaking of atagert, that new halo of yours is really taking on a good form. The one thing I would try to do is speed up the pulsing effect on its brightness. It looks liek you were paying with alpha keys or something, but I was thinking it faded in and out a little slow. Overall it's looking good though! Do I understand correctly that you made a file with the white and gold text already that is customizable?!? The .blend file taht you linked to wouldn't load for me, both holy cow and congratulations if you figured this out so quickly. Certainly would save me from wasting my riday afternoon :D

It's wild seeing all these different renders coming together, everyone has their own take on it but everyone's looks so good. I really like the latest effect on MikeFalz's render. The horizontal cloudy effect is very cool and goes perfectly with the next animation taht I was going to attempt once I perfect the Universal intro.

Mike, if possible, can you please explain exactly what that cloud effect is? Is it simply part of the background or is it a textured mesh? As I said it might help me greatly in my next project. Thanks!

MikeFalz

01-23-07, 06:27 PM

The cloud is just a backgound image applied to world with a "REAL" property. All the stars are Blender starts.

atagert

01-23-07, 07:12 PM

I only made a file with the gold letters custimizable. I haven't had a chance yet to try the white letters. I am using the alpha. I had also tried on using the halo size key frames, but found that the alpha changes also made it look like it was growing too.

As to the speed. I had too fast at one, where it pulsed with abrupt changes, I guess I slowed it down a bit too much.

You will notice that my earth doesn't have any clouds, that is personal preference, but in the blend files, the clouds are there, just have to check the texture for clouds.

I think I'm done with blender for a few hours.

Adam

sega_97

01-23-07, 09:56 PM

I just begun to play with this. You guys have done a great with it so far. One question, I had is with the "world" texture (star field, nebula, etc), how you get it to zoom out so that the starfield is larger. Every image I load in it, the render seems to zoom into the center of the image and it make the star very blurry.

w84no1

01-23-07, 09:58 PM

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

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

Awesome render, could you post your .blend file?

To All:
Great work guys, I am glad to see that this project is moving along at a good pace

zductive

01-23-07, 10:18 PM

Adam

I have not been able to get access to your blend examples.
Are they posted?

bike potato

01-23-07, 10:47 PM

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

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

Wow! That looks unbelievable - congrats. Is there an editable file that I can use for my theater (VILLA NEGRETE)? Thanks in advance.

atagert

01-24-07, 12:52 AM

Adam

I have not been able to get access to your blend examples.
Are they posted?

Yes, they are posted. That is actually really odd.

I enabled directory browsing.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/

I also created zip files, which do work.

You should be able to see all the files now. There must be some setting that I'm missing since i upgraded to iis7 from iis6.

Adam

edit: the new feature is called Request Filtering. It basically blocks file extensions that arn't standard. I have to learn how to modify the xml based config files, and since it is late, I'll worry about that later.

Mark Booth

01-24-07, 04:30 AM

Mike sent me a "The Booth Bijou" blend file with "Feature Presentation" that appears along the bottom. I rendered it on my Mac at 1280x720 and it came out AWESOME!! Now I'm rendering one without the "Feature Presentation" (deleting the text was easy).

This is FUN!! :)

Thank you Mike!!

Mark

w84no1

01-24-07, 09:15 AM

I finished editing the blender file. Check it out

http://www.falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal.mpg

Big download (20Mb). I should probably make a lower resolution one to share.

Now that I know how to do it, I can do it for someone else if there's interest.

Mike,
If you don't mind could you make a .blend file with a generic
FEATURE PRESENTATION
IN HIGH DEFINITION

And one without the IN HIGH DEFINITION

Thanks and great work!!!

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 09:24 AM

I finished my final render. I'll probably tweak the timing of the "IN HIGH DEFINITION" text, but here it goes...

http://falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal%20HD.wmv

I also posted a Template for the blender file.

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

HOWEVER, you will not be able to customize this for yourself unless you get familiar with blender. It took me hours and hours to figure out how to do this.

Basically, you need to edit the text in the front left of the picture (not the text circling the globe). Move it so it's in front of the globe, the turn it into a Mesh. Make it's center the center of the globe. Apply the Rotation and Warp Curve Keys to it (that's the hard part). And Render.

Good luck!

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 09:29 AM

Mike,
If you don't mind could you make a .blend file with a generic
FEATURE PRESENTATION
IN HIGH DEFINITION

And one without the IN HIGH DEFINITION

Thanks and great work!!!

I'll work on this today and post it tonight.

w84no1

01-24-07, 09:45 AM

I'll work on this today and post it tonight.

Thanks, and the misty fog looks awesome :eek:

atagert

01-24-07, 10:51 AM

I think, I'm getting the hang of the white lettering. Here is a sample letter that I created to see if I'm getting the effect right.

What do you think?

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/letter.jpg

Adam

atagert

01-24-07, 12:26 PM

Well, its looking better.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/whitetext0500.jpg

disguised coot

01-24-07, 01:10 PM

new to this forum, been doing some renders of my own, how did you get the white and golde lettering? any tips for us brits?

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 01:11 PM

Wow! That looks unbelievable - congrats. Is there an editable file that I can use for my theater (VILLA NEGRETE)? Thanks in advance.

Send me a PM with your e-mail and I'll create a blend file that you can render.

Mike

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 01:12 PM

MIG1868 (Mike)

I created your WELLINGTON CINEMA blend file. It's on its way.

Mike

disguised coot

01-24-07, 01:16 PM

would you do a blend file for me that says
Albion Street Cinema

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 01:33 PM

would you do a blend file for me that says
Albion Street Cinema

OK, send me a PM with your e-mail.

Mike

latntekky

01-24-07, 01:38 PM

atagert

01-24-07, 01:45 PM

humm..
i may be using an older blend file..
but my test render doesnt seem to have enough light on the earth/text.
still has the blue halo too but ill fix that later on today thanks to your instructions.

did i miss something with the lighting?

I have been uping the amount of light release by both the text and the earth. I can't tell you what it is, since I'm rending right now, but it is the materials or texture tab.

Adam

atagert

01-24-07, 01:48 PM

new to this forum, been doing some renders of my own, how did you get the white and golde lettering? any tips for us brits?

Well, I'm right now just doing my first render of it and was going to write instructions, but here is the general idea.

You create a second text put it right in front, and set the width to be like .970 or so. Then you convert it to a mesh and select both and join them. Then you have an new object that you can control both parts as they are separate materials. After that, you bend and do the rotating stuff.

I don't have much time to reply right now, but I'll give more details later.

Adam

atagert

01-24-07, 01:55 PM

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 02:23 PM

would you do a blend file for me that says
Albion Street Cinema

On it's way...

disguised coot

01-24-07, 02:29 PM

cheers buddy!

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 03:10 PM

Movieguy2001,

Your CAPITAL CINEMA blend is on it's way.

Mike

volley

01-24-07, 03:18 PM

Here is my first render with the white on the text. As I said, I'm going to make a template of it for everybody tonight. it is a bit wrong concerning the rotation speed as it moves too far to the left.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/whitetext.wmv

Adam

That looks significantly better overall. Really well done! If you do put a package together it would be nice to have a spot where the starfield image is.

Great work. Look forward to rendering it.

Sevker

01-24-07, 03:36 PM

Nice work!

How would I go about requesting a "custom blend file"?

If possible "Morton Family Cinema"

Let me know what I need to do!

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 04:07 PM

Nice work!

How would I go about requesting a "custom blend file"?

If possible "Morton Family Cinema"

Let me know what I need to do!

If you like the one I posted, Post your request here (you did that already) and send me a PM with your email address.

These requests are starting to add up!! I'll try and keep up.

sega_97

01-24-07, 04:27 PM

Mike,

I really your updated version. Would you mind doing another one for me.

EMILY CINEMA

Will PM you my email address.

Thanks.
If you like the one I posted, Post your request here (you did that already) and send me a PM with your email address.

These requests are starting to add up!! I'll try and keep up.

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 04:36 PM

Mike,

I really your updated version. Would you mind doing another one for me.

EMILY CINEMA

Will PM you my email address.

Thanks.

On its way...

atagert

01-24-07, 06:40 PM

That looks significantly better overall. Really well done! If you do put a package together it would be nice to have a spot where the starfield image is.

Great work. Look forward to rendering it.

The star field is generated in Blender, so there isn't a file you need. You of course can add a background like Mike has been doing.

Adam

sega_97

01-24-07, 07:30 PM

Mike,

Great Work. Turned out great.

On its way...

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 08:29 PM

Mike,
If you don't mind could you make a .blend file with a generic
FEATURE PRESENTATION
IN HIGH DEFINITION

And one without the IN HIGH DEFINITION

Thanks and great work!!!

Here it is...

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

To remove the IN HIGH DEFINITION, just right cick on it and press delete.

movieguy2001

01-24-07, 09:36 PM

Mike,

Thanks for the file. This turned out wonderfully! Cant wait to show it off!

StoneMason

01-24-07, 10:38 PM

Hi Mike,
Could you do a blend file for me?

CAPITOL THEATRE
feature presentation

I've been fooling around with Blender, but its not the most intuitive software.... and its going to take me a long time to render (800mhz).

I'll PM you my email addr.

thanks!

MikeFalz

01-24-07, 10:52 PM

timdog82001

01-25-07, 04:38 AM

is there an easy way to change the text in that blender file?

Magius

01-25-07, 06:14 AM

timdog,
Atagert and I both released .blend files with customizable texts if you're interested. If you prefer the MikeFalz design though you'll have to request that he do the editing for you. The only difference text wise is that in Mike's file I presume he's basically deleting the old text mesh, adding a new one, and then re-animating it for you, whereas in atagert and my file we let you edit the straight text, convert it to a mesh, and then follow our instructions on reanimating it.

I really wish I had more time to work on this besides Fridays. Everyone else is making so much progress and I'm dying to finish my white on gold lettering and some other minor tweaks. On another note, is anyone else planning on adding to their movie studio intro collection beyond the simple Fox and Universal intros? I have a couple of thoughts on starting from scratch to create another 1 or 2 of these style intros, and was wondering if anyone else would be attempting more as well?

disguised coot

01-25-07, 08:04 AM

what codecs are people using to render their animations in? i want close as possible to HD

latntekky

01-25-07, 09:28 AM

theres an HD button on the bottom right under Render options.. it will resize the video for 1080.
use AVI Codec - Full uncompressed
this will take a boat load of time to render.. but its your best option

atagert

01-25-07, 09:30 AM

i have been using avi uncompressed, so no compression. I may try later to render in 720p and make an HD DVD, but not yet.

I've been thinking of creating star trek one with the camera flying through the solar system, I'm just not sure yet how to end it, since I am not good enough to model the enterprise (or at least, not yet).

Adam

latntekky

01-25-07, 09:31 AM

did anybody get the curtain file finished as well?
im trying a test render now.. but it seems theres a white background behind the screen curtain

w84no1

01-25-07, 10:42 AM

Am creating a 720p version uncompressed, then i will use Xvid to compress it. Still should look pretty darn good.

w84no1

01-25-07, 10:43 AM

did anybody get the curtain file finished as well?
im trying a test render now.. but it seems theres a white background behind the screen curtain

Haven't tried that one yet. Might start this weekend.

w84no1

01-25-07, 10:45 AM

Chiahead

01-25-07, 10:46 AM

I am creating a High Def animation using PNG. It makes the separate slides. I do about 100 per night, then my wife can still use the PC during the day.

Then use VirtualDub to compress it to Xvid.

I think VirtualDub can add sound from the mp3, but haven't gotten that far yet.

atagert

01-25-07, 10:55 AM

This site has an Enterprise mesh
http://stblender.iindigo3d.com/

Oh wow, thats sooo cool. I'm definately making a start trek thing,

Adam

bike potato

01-25-07, 01:43 PM

PM sent - thanks Mike!

Send me a PM with your e-mail and I'll create a blend file that you can render.

Mike

zductive

01-25-07, 03:31 PM

There appears to be a white wall behind the curtains. You can move the wall farther back and put your text in front of it. I put my text in the middle of the curtains so that it is partially displayed as the curtains dance around

MikeFalz

01-25-07, 03:42 PM

bike potato
greighn
Sevker
mprusak
Stone Mason

Your blender files are done.

MikeFalz

01-25-07, 03:49 PM

Here's a low def version of my completed render if anyone was having difficulty with the hi def one.

http://www.falzonvideo.com/vid/Falzon%20Universal%20LD.wmv

timdog82001

01-25-07, 04:45 PM

timdog,
Atagert and I both released .blend files with customizable texts if you're interested. If you prefer the MikeFalz design though you'll have to request that he do the editing for you. The only difference text wise is that in Mike's file I presume he's basically deleting the old text mesh, adding a new one, and then re-animating it for you, whereas in atagert and my file we let you edit the straight text, convert it to a mesh, and then follow our instructions on reanimating it.

The only blend files out of your directory it lets me download is the text.blend file. I can't get the halo ones, which is what i need, correct? It just tells me there was a server error and that the file or directory cannot be found

StoneMason

01-25-07, 05:52 PM

I've been creating blender files for folks to render. Can you render the file if I put it together?

Mike

Yep, sorry if I wasn't clear. I can let Blender run for a few days to render it.

Magius

01-25-07, 05:59 PM

timdog you'll have to talk to atagert, he's the one hosting a directory. My files are just directly linked in the thread, I beleive on page 3? Anyway with mine you have to do some of the grunt work yourself, but there are instructions provided that some have found useful. I'm not sure if atagerts require more or less of your own work, but I think at this point his has visually surpassed my old upload as I've made a few changes to my own render that haven't made it into the customizable version yet.

zductive

01-25-07, 07:02 PM

timdog
download the text.zip file. Works and looks great.

w84no1

01-25-07, 08:15 PM

Thanks Mike. Here is a single frame rendering. I had to move the IN HIGH DEFINITION up so that it fit the 16x9 AR. Still looks awesome!!!!

MikeFalz

01-25-07, 08:44 PM

Yep, sorry if I wasn't clear. I can let Blender run for a few days to render it.

On its way...

redstang93

01-25-07, 09:46 PM

PM sent Mike.

Everyone has done awesome work with this intro. I was able to work with the Fox opening pretty easily, but this one has been giving me a lot of trouble. I want to learn blender because it seems like it can be a useful tool to have.

atagert

01-25-07, 10:06 PM

Hey all, I haven't left or anything, I've been busy today with a conference on the effect of plug in hybrid cars on the California electrical infrastructure and helping out a few people with their presentations on telephones in Thiland, education in India, and emisions from Texas oil refineries. I'm around night, and hopefully, I'll get a new blender file up with instruction on doing the white text file in the next 2 days.

Adam

latntekky

01-26-07, 08:29 AM

Thanks Mike. Here is a single frame rendering. I had to move the IN HIGH DEFINITION up so that it fit the 16x9 AR. Still looks awesome!!!!

Nice.... quick question.. im trying to resize mine for a 16x9 screen.. what was the size that you put into blender?.... I cant get mine to fit right without bars... i tried 848x480, but its not quite the perfect fit. :confused:

on a side note.. there's a custom voice over thread here where you can get your theater name read by an announcer.

sample is only 1mb.
http://nuclearcrayon.net/~htmlmecca/newhouse/hometheater/universal_intro.wmv

w84no1

01-26-07, 09:46 AM

Nice.... quick question.. im trying to resize mine for a 16x9 screen.. what was the size that you put into blender?.... I cant get mine to fit right without bars... i tried 848x480, but its not quite the perfect fit. :confused:

on a side note.. there's a custom voice over thread here where you can get your theater name read by an announcer.

sample is only 1mb.
http://nuclearcrayon.net/~htmlmecca/newhouse/hometheater/universal_intro.wmv

I used 1280 x 720 which is 720 HD, I had to move the IN HIGH DEFINITION closer to the globe so that it would fit the 16x9 aspect ratio.

I have the custom voice over cd, but I have changed the name of my theater since then. I am going to wait until I finish my theater before I order another voice over cd. :)

Sevker

01-26-07, 10:07 AM

bike potato
greighn
Sevker
mprusak
Stone Mason

Your blender files are done.

And mine looks great! Thanks Mike!! I'll post a low rez wmv of it later on.

Magius

01-26-07, 12:44 PM

To those having problems rendering a 16:9 resolution in your dvd player without black bars, I'll repeat some advice that I picked up in the original FOX intro thread. I'm not the originator of this information but it worked for me and my FOX intro.

720x480 (DVD resolution) is obviously not a 16:9 ratio (it's 1.5:1 rather than 1.777:1). In order to fill the screen with no black bars you need to use a true 16:9 resolution, such as 800x450 instead. This is close enough to the regular DVD resolution, but maintains the aspect ratio that you're looking for without the black bars.

Of course you can render in the HD resolutions (1280x720, etc.) and eliminate the problem entirely, but in the FOX thread there were many peole complaining about black bar issues while trying to get DVD or near-DVD resolutions, so I thought I'd repost the solution here. Hope that helps.

Magius

01-26-07, 02:16 PM

Finally after a long week of not having the time to touch my .blend file it's Friday and I'm able to add some finishing touches. The white on gold lettering is now complete, and I've attached some 16:9 screenshots showing the new look. It was painstakingly difficult to do, but I think it turned out nice.

Also, I felt that the text was a wee bit dark after settling into place in front of the earth, so I added some extra lamps to help illuminate it. These lamps dont come on until the same time the Halo appears, so it looks like the earth's halo actually brightens the text. I don't know it's kinda cheesy, but I like the result. Look closely at frame 300 vs. 400 and you'll see the difference in lighting that I'm talking about.

I guess the next step is another low-res video to make sure there's nothing blatant that needs fixing, but otherwise this intro may just be complete!

MikeFalz

01-26-07, 02:27 PM

zductive

01-26-07, 02:50 PM

Anyone willing to help me branch this off with deep space nine replacing the earth and enterprise circling along with the text?

atagert

01-26-07, 03:25 PM

Anyone willing to help me branch this off with deep space nine replacing the earth and enterprise circling along with the text?

Well, replacing the stuff is easy, just insert the messhes where the other were and delete the old ones. the bigger problem, is that you will have to come up with a new lighting scheme as the star trek ships don't emit light. At some point, I'm going to attempt something like that, but I want to get my universal and fox logos done and rendered.

Adam

atagert

01-26-07, 03:51 PM

atagert

01-26-07, 03:57 PM

I just discovered that there optimized versions of blender that run faster for windows users with advanced CPUs. I'm installing now to see the speed difference.

http://graphicall.org

Select windows and then BF.

Adam

I can confirm that the render times feel like better than half of what they are with the official version.

Adam

MikeFalz

01-26-07, 05:41 PM

ND23,

Your blender file is on it's way.

Mike

StoneMason

01-26-07, 07:23 PM

bike potato
greighn
Sevker
mprusak
Stone Mason

Your blender files are done.

Thanks a mill Mike... it looks perfect!

I started the render a few minutes ago (that'll take some time). However, You saved me countless hours of setting this up myself in Blender.

I do want to understand how to do this myself eventually, but I am hardcore into finishing the theatre right now.

sm

w84no1

01-26-07, 07:56 PM

I can confirm that the render times feel like better than half of what they are with the official version.

Adam

Yes, it cuts my render time in half. For a 1280 x 720 render it went from 3 hours to 1.5 hours. For the .blend file that Mike sent me

Great find!!!

Update, it crashes when I try to render one frame of my fox style .blend file :(

atagert

01-26-07, 09:14 PM

Yes, it cuts my render time in half. For a 1280 x 720 render it went from 3 hours to 1.5 hours. For the .blend file that Mike sent me

Great find!!!

Update, it crashes when I try to render one frame of my fox style .blend file :(

Hmm, I am rendering the fox logo right now on my 2nd computer with the optimized blender. I think I may have figured out the flickering.

Adam

atagert

01-26-07, 09:28 PM

Hi all, I have finished my universal file. Here is the video of it. This video has feature presentation wrap around the earth and the theater name to fade in. Personally, this is what I prefer.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/universal_feature.wmv (4mb)

Fortunely, it is easy to edit this way.

blender file
http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/feature_presentation_wt.zip

To Edit
1. Right click on ATagert Theater PGH
2. press TAB
3. Change Text
4. press TAB
5. render.

you may have to assoicate the earth sphere with the map of the earth, to do that, Right click on the early, F6, then Load Image.

I have included a slightly edited map, that begins over India instead of the Pacific.

Remember, you can downloaded a version of blender that is optimized for your CPU. http://www.graphicall.org

I will post a file that can be used to edit the wrapping text soon. (maybe tomorrow).

Adam

w84no1

01-26-07, 09:37 PM

Hmm, I am rendering the fox logo right now on my 2nd computer with the optimized blender. I think I may have figured out the flickering.

Adam

If you do get it render without the flicker can you post the .blend file? That is the only thing that I hate about my Fox intro.

atagert

01-26-07, 09:42 PM

If you do get it render without the flicker can you post the .blend file? That is the only thing that I hate about my Fox intro.

Sure, I'll make the post in the fox thread though if successful.

Adam

w84no1

01-26-07, 10:00 PM

Sure, I'll make the post in the fox thread though if successful.

Adam

Thanks!

atagert

01-27-07, 03:32 PM

Ok, I created the template file with instructions that will allow you to edit any of the text in the universal file.

http://atagert.andrew.cmu.edu/videos/atagert_universal_template.zip

Hope all the instructions are clear. If anybody creates anything with, I'm interested in knowing about what you did.

The file is real a zip file and includes the blender file and the instructions in both word 97-2003 and word 2007 formats.

Adam

disguised coot

01-28-07, 09:40 AM

thanks for the files, but i have followed your guide but a cant seem to edit the text that comes around the globe,, i select it but it shows up as a mesh and not text.

Magius

01-28-07, 11:26 AM

disguised coot, I confirmed what you are talking about just this morning. Atagert's file seems to have the text already converted to a mesh, however his modified version of my instructions treat it as if it were still plain text. Unfortunately He'll have to upload a .blend file with plain text in order for the instructions to work out.

Alternatively you could download my old .blend file (back on page 3 or so) and use my instructions, but you'll be lacking a number of visual enhancements that have happened since then. Off the top of my head I know it's missing the white on gold lettering, the halo is a poor looking hack job (though there's a second set of instructions for fixing that), and there are no clouds on the earth (though this can be easily added). There might be other things missing from that file as well, but if you're up for some experimenting it's not a bad place to start.

atagert

01-28-07, 03:51 PM

oh, sorry about that. I guess I just uploaded the wrong file. I'll check into it.

Adam

jeffczyz

01-28-07, 06:02 PM

Looks like you guys are making some good progress on the blender files. I apologize for the delay in getting back with everyone, I've been trying to wrap up this countdown project this past week.

A few of you expressed interest in having me render out some AVI's without the sound. For those that contacted me, are you still interested? After the progress being made with the blender files, I don't want to waste time rendering out stuff that can't be altered.

Please PM me if you're interested,

Thanks,

Jeff

atagert

01-29-07, 10:45 AM

I fixed the file. For some reason, which I don't know I can't upload it, so I'm just going to attach it here, and later update the other one.

mprusak

01-29-07, 12:09 PM

Chiahead

01-29-07, 12:21 PM

Mike -

I got my file and rendered it this weekend. It looks great! Thank you, Thank you!!

Now, my questions...I did this before with the Fox style one, but can't remember how.

So, I have this huge 1.8 GB avi file (that my computer can not play smoothly).

How do I add the audio to this?
How do I convert this to a file the computer can play?
How do I convert this to a file I can play on a DVD player?

Thanks again...

Mark.
Try downloading VirtualDub. It is free, and can add the audio, plus compress the video.

Or for the Fox one, I used Studio from Pinnacle. (It came with my video card) It will allow you to make the video, add audio, and make a DVD.

I don't know, but Nero might take your final file and make a DVD for you.

redstang93

01-29-07, 05:37 PM

On it's way...

Thanks Mike. The animation looks awesome. Added the audio and now am just trying to convert it to a .vob file.

Mark Booth

01-29-07, 07:18 PM

Mike -

I got my file and rendered it this weekend. It looks great! Thank you, Thank you!!

Now, my questions...I did this before with the Fox style one, but can't remember how.

So, I have this huge 1.8 GB avi file (that my computer can not play smoothly).

How do I add the audio to this?
How do I convert this to a file the computer can play?
How do I convert this to a file I can play on a DVD player?

Thanks again...

Mark.

Load the big ponderous file into iMovie HD, edit (add sound, fade in/fade out, etc.) to your heart's content, and then export it as a H.264 compressed file. Everything you need comes free with your Mac.

Sorry... couldn't resist! :D

Mark

atagert

01-29-07, 08:31 PM

Load the big ponderous file into iMovie HD, edit (add sound, fade in/fade out, etc.) to your heart's content, and then export it as a H.264 compressed file. Everything you need comes free with your Mac.

Sorry... couldn't resist! :D

Mark

I think Windows Movie Maker does the same stuff.

Jawhn

01-29-07, 10:34 PM

I fixed the file. For some reason, which I don't know I can't upload it, so I'm just going to attach it here, and later update the other one.

Having problems! :confused:

I've used some earlier files, followed the instructions and made a couple of DVD's with decent results. With the latest file above I had several problems.

1. When I switch to "top view" (7) all text and the globe disappears.

2. After changing the text on the globe and centering, the 2 texts don't line up and the white text disappears when selected. " Backspace" only deletes part of the text ("delate" must be used for the remaining letters).

3. The lower fade in text renders "black".

4. When in "Animation" (Part 3 of the instructions), there does not appear to be any animation.

5. What do I select in the "World buttons" panel to select a new background sky?

One last Question: What sound file are you using?

I figured out how to correct some of these problems but could definitely use some help.

Thanks for all the hard work! Any help is appreciated.

atagert

01-30-07, 12:50 AM

I haven't actually added any sound to mine. I'm not sure what I'm going to use. I was hoping to figure out how to encode it into 5 channels and thus do some fun effects with it, but I don't know how to do that yet.

1. As to the globe disappearing, I think you may just have to zoom out. To do that, it the - key on the number pad. You can scroll around the window by holding ctrl and pressing 8,6,4,2.

2. The reason you may have use backspace and delete, is that blender remembers where the cursor was when I last edited the file. Apprently, I had it somewhere in the middle.

2a. Let me see you're right, it does disappear when editing. I'm not sure why it does that. I have only been using blender this past week.

2b. To re lineup your text you can select it and then click on the object menu, and then on transform. You'll see the options move on axis and scale on axis. the x axis is left and right and z is up and down. Choose the local opion to make it simplier.

3. You'll want to make sure you render after frame 550. Before that point it is set to be transparent.

4. I am assuming that you are having a problem to get the text to move around the earth. My suggestions is to be looking straight down (7), th