Motion blur – It’s all about balancing

Lesson by Ciro Sannino - Auth on April 11, 2013, filed in: V-Ray Tutorials
Dear friends!

 let’s start from definition of motion blur I found on wikipedia

Motion blur is the apparent streaking of rapidly moving objects in a still image or a sequence of images such as a movie or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single frame, either due to rapid movement or long exposure.

I bring this to your attention to highlight – once more – how lovely is first understand photography, then simply translate concepts in V-Ray!
Motion blur is due to rapid movement or long exposure: in few words the subject is moving faster than the shutter speed.


MAIN CONDITION: To get motion blur with V-Ray is getting animated objects. Using RayFire (a very simple and powerful tool) I already animated this group of nails.
Check the final result in this video:


As explained in many lessons of our v-ray course, this kind of situation is classified as medium amount of light that, in our 5SRW standard, means we can use shutter speed = 50 – Here the draft render at frame 10:

Note: To get motion blur I need to render an intermediate frame, while objects are falling.

We don’t need to make meaningless tests to get this effect! Just ask to yourself:
Could shutter speed = 50 be an exposure time longer enought to capture falling objects?
Every photographer in the world (V-Ray unaware) would answer:  YESS! Great, so just let’s enable motion blur in the V-Ray Physical Camera:


Render again and here the result:

Of course the photographer was right!
The objects are blurred.. too much I say! Motion blur is a great way to communicate dynamism, but it’s important to get the right quantity of blur in order to create an effective communication. Control the blur controlling the exposure time.
I can reduce the exposure time increasing shutter speed, but this will reduce the incoming amount of light, so we need to balance with ISO:

• reduce exposure time: shutter speed = 50…. > 300
• increse film sensitivity: ISO = 100… > 800

In this way we keep exposure constant, but objects could appear less blurred:


Think that motion blur is not fine for sports photographers!!! They need to “freeze” the players using very fast shutter speed values. Of course we could just disable “motion blur”, but just try to verify if V-Ray is so real as they say

• reduce a lot exposure time: shutter speed = 2500
• increse film sensitivity: ISO = 4000

Magic! V-Ray really works as a real DSLR: Nails freezed in the air!
This is just to demonstrate how V-Ray completely imitate a DSLR behavior. Note that this image is not exactly as the first one (without motion blur) since a subtle amount of motion blur is perceptible, making it more realistic than the first image. Of course this means longer render times.
Hope you liked this sneak!
Ciro Sannino
– – –
V-Ray Licensed Instructor / 5SRW

Rendering an exterior at night in 5 simple steps, using vray

In this tutorial I will go through all the steps that we usually do when I’m asked to do an “exterior night-rendering”.
In order to follow it you need to know the basics of 3ds max and vray.
1) Natural light
The first step is to choose a background image of a sky.
For this tutorial I have used the image bellow:

Now put the desired image into the environment slot (3d max’s environment slot, not in vray’s).
In the vray settings, check global illumination, select lightcache for secondary bounces, irradiance map for primary (you could also use brute force, but it will take longer to render).
In the global switches tab, make sure that “default lights” is unchecked.
Last but not least go to the vray environment slot and check “GI environment (skylight) override. In the slot right beside put a gradient (dark blue in the upper slot, a lighter blue in the middle and a pale orange or purple in the lower position)

If you hit render, you will end up with something like this:

2) Adding artificial lights inside
As you notice, it is starting too look like a night rendering, but at the moment it lacks artificial lighting so the spaces look deserted.
We will begin by adding vray lights inside the house, to simulate artificial lighting.
The important thing to keep in mind at this point is that artificial light can look different from one case to another depending on many factors (intensity, color temperature, size of the space that is actually lit, etc.) so you shouldn’t put a light source and instance it all over the place. Be creative and play with parameters like intensity multipliers, filter colors, etc.
For this scene I have used spherical vray lights with intensity multipliers varying from 1 to 2, filter colors with orange, yellow and blue tints and different a radius for each one.

If you hit another render you will end up with something very similar to the following.

3) Simulating artificial light “spreading” from inside
Now we have light inside the house, but the light doesn’t seem to “come out” enough. Therefore we will place vray planar lights just in front of the windows, pointing towards the exterior, like in the following image.

Hit another test rendering and you should have something similar to the render bellow:

4) Adding artificial lights in the courtyard
We are getting closer. What doesn’t look right at the moment is the fact that the courtyard is too dark. Depending on your scene, you may have exterior lighting fixtures (like the lighting posts that I have in this scene), or even exterior spotlights that illuminate the building.  If you don’t have specific instructions for these, you could place lights somewhere behind the camera, so that you give the impression that the space is receiving illumination from neighboring sources (street lights, car lights, or even other buildings).
In this particular scene, adding lights to the lighting small garden lighting posts should be enough.
First I have assigned them a vraylight material with a gradient map; than I have placed vray spherical lights over each one. For each vray light in the courtyard I have excluded the lighting post bellow it. This is kind of a fake, but in the end it looks right, and that’s all that matters. (If you want to do it more “accurate” check out the lampshade tutorial as well).

Hitting a test render at this stage you should obtain something like this:

5) Photoshop touches
a) Add a subtle glow effect to the visible artificial light sources (in this case, the small lighting posts). You can do this using the diffuse glow filter.
b) In a new layer, add a linear gradient from bottom to somewhere at the middle from orange to transparent. Put the layer on “color” and play with the transparency until you like the result. If you are feeling creative, you can also try some subtle brush strokes, with different tints of red, yellow or orange to create diversity.
After having done all of the above, here is the final image.
(CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW A HIGH RESOLUTION RENDERING)

Conclusion
Rendering an exterior at night can be very tricky. The best approach in my opinion is to take it systematically by starting with natural light, and adding artificial lights one by one during the process. Otherwise, you may find yourself lost not knowing where you did something wrong.
I can not stress enough how important is to have a few examples of professional architectural photography at hand and look at them at every stage of the process.
Here are some general guidelines that I always keep in mind when I’m doing a night rendering:
1) Even at night time the skylight still casts a subtle shadow.
2) Never make the sky 100% black; it should have either a blue or a purple tint.
3) If there are no artificial lights on the ground, the sky will always be brighter and the ground would “borrow” a bluish or purple tint from the sky
4) The lighting is a mixture of dark purple/bluish tints at the upper part and orange/yellow on the ground and on the building(s). That is because the natural light blends with artificial light sources placed on the ground.
5) The colors are more saturated in a night rendering that in a daytime one.
6) Artificial light sources have a subtle glow around them.
7) If you have “moving objects” in your scene, don’t be afraid to use motion blur. If you know a bit about photography, you are aware that at night time photographers use high exposure times when they target architectural subjects; this causes all moving things around (cars, people, etc) to appear with motion blur.
If you think that I have missed something, feel free to post a comment and let me know.

VRay IES Light

Hey, here’s all you need to know about VRay IES Light Setup by using 3Ds Max.
Hey, here’s all you need to know about VRay IES Light Setup by using 3Ds Max.

You can use Photometric IES viewer to view IES lights here’s the download website http://www.photometricviewer.com/
And you can also Download FREE 30 IES lights here
My test scene can be downloaded here

Enjoy!

Vray IES light in 3ds max

Beetle landing breakdown by Andreas Leijon

MPC Wrath of the Titans VFX breakdown

Moving Picture Company Wrath of the Titans Vfx Breakdown, MPC VFX Supervisor Gary Brozenich & Producer Oliver Money led MPC’s team delivering 280 shots for the Wrath of the Titans movie.
MPC’s worked on the opening Dream Sequence, the Chimera attack, the final battle with Kronos, the Makhai warriors and Pegasus, as well as the Gods dying and dissolving, full CG temples, set extensions and a number of stunning DMP’s throughout.
Check out more Making of & Vfx Breakdowns by MPC
 
 
 





 


 


 


 





 


 


 


 





 





 


 


 


 


 


 

BIOS Overclocking for Beginners

Firstly, I wan't you to check if you have features in your BIOS that support overclocking, if no, I'll compose a different guide. If yes, continue below!!

Right here we go!

Here are a few key words you need to know:
Base Clock: affects your CPU frequency, RAM frequency, and other things. We won't be tweaking it in this guide, but we'll be using it to calculate our final clock speed.
Multiplier: Coupled with the base clock, your CPU multiplier decides your final CPU frequency. It works like this: if your base clock is, say, 100 MHz and your multiplier is 35, your CPU frequency will be 100 MHz x 35 = 3.5 GHz.
CPU Vcore: is the main voltage value we'll be tweaking. As you increase your clock speed, you will likely have to raise your Vcore to supply your processor with enough power.
Front Side Bus (FSB): is what determines the CPU frequency. For example, say if you have a CPU frequency of 1.6Ghz and a FSB speed of 533Mhz, that means that your CPU multiplier is 1.6/533=3. This means that for every time you raise your Front Side Bus' speed, you'll raise the CPU frequency by three times as much.

Before we start, overclocking is a pretty safe process if carried out correctly. If not, you may permanently damage your system components. I strongly recommend that you set yourself a target clock speed to aim for and most importantly, that you have Patience. For example, you should only increase the multiplier by 1 each time, stress test the system and if all is ok, increase again and so on. If you are greedy and increase it massively, you could fry the system. The moral: You can never be too careful when overclocking.

Preparation

There are two methods of overclocking, through the BIOS and software overclocking.

BIOS Overclocking

What You'll Need:

A Windows machine: This guide is for Windows, though if you have a Mackintosh or a Linux machine with a Windows partition, that should do fine—we're just going to do our stability testing in Windows.
An unlocked, "K" series Intel/AMD processor: This guide was written with Intel's/AMD's more recent processors in mind, particularly the "K" series processors designed for overclocking. They'll have a K in their model name (e.g. i7-4770K/Athlon II X4 750K). If you have a first-gen Core i series processor, overclocking is a bit more complicated, but this guide should get you started. You can overclock other processors too (like Intel's low-powered Atom), but for this guide we'll be focusing on these. AMD users can probably follow many of the steps, but you may have to look up some additional information on your processor's settings first.
An overclocking-friendly motherboard: Lots of motherboards should have overclocking settings built-in, but some motherboards have more settings than others, or are better suited for overclocking. If you're building a computer with the intent to overclock, you should read up on your motherboard's overclocking features before you buy.
CPU-Z: This is a handy little program that shows you the values of your clock speed, voltage, and so on once you've booted into Windows, so it's a handy way to see whether your settings are working correctly.
Prime95, LinX, and/or AIDA64: You'll need one or all of these programs to stress test your CPU and ensure that it's stable. They will push your chip to the max, so you can see if your computer crashes or gets too hot. There's a lot of debate over which is the better stress tester, but we won't get into that here—honestly, I believe in using some combination of the three, and will note how I use them in the guide.

Optional, A decent CPU cooler. For a minor overclock you can use the stock cooler which came with the processor but for a major overclock, you will need a good aftermarket cooler, though not necessary, it would give you more headroom.

Step One: Stress test your default settings.

Though this step isn't necessary, I decided to include it since you can never be too sure that even your default settings are completely stable.

1. Restart your computer.
2. Keep hitting either the 'delete' button or F2/F8/F10 (depending on your system's BIOS). This will Bring you into the BIOS menu.
3. Find the 'Load Optimized Defaults' text or something similar, click on it and then exit the setup.

Once you've done that reboot Windows and launch the AIDA64 Utility and click on 'System Stability Test' (the one that looks like a computer monitor with a green graph on it). Check all the boxes in the upper left-hand corner, and start the test. Let it run for a few hours on its own to ensure your system is stable as-is. When you're done, click Stop, and move onto step two.

Step Two: Overclocking (Increasing the Multiplier)

Now it's time to start overclocking. You can google around and see what kind of settings other people have gotten, but I still recommend starting at your base clock speed and gradually ramping up—it takes a little longer, but it's much easier to do and ensures you get the best stable overclock by the end of the process.

So, boot back into your BIOS and head to its overclocking settings (they may be called "Overclocking Settings," or they may be called the "CPU Tweaker" or something like that).

Find the setting called CPU Ratio, or something similar. Right now, it's probably set to "Auto." Highlight it and change it to one step above the default (either by pressing Enter or typing in a number, depending on your BIOS). If you aren't sure what your default is, it's usually listed at the top of that Overclocking Settings page. For example, my CPU comes stock with a multiplier of 34 for a 3.4 GHz clock speed, so I set mine to 35 for the first step.

Once you've done that, reboot your computer back into Windows and head to the next step.

Step 3: Stress Testing you CPU

Now after gently overcloking your CPU, it's time to stress test it to see if your current setup is stable.

1. Check CPUz to see if all the tweaks you have made have been applied.
2. Use Real Temp to monitor the temperatures as you stress test. (Keep a sharp eye on these if you raise the Voltages)
3. Use any of the three programmes mentioned to stress test. Just a quick note that LinX provides a quick test while the tests by Prime95 and AIDA64 are more extensive.

For example, run LinX for 20mins. Your test will end in one of three ways:

1.The test finishes successfully within safe temperatures. If this happens, return to step two and increase the multiplier by another notch.
2.The system gets an error or crashes (BSOD). If this happens, the voltages aren't set high enough. If so, proceed to step four.
3.Your temperatures reach unsafe levels. Set a limit to what you think is the maximum temperature you want to reach. Remember, high voltages and temperatures could shorten your CPU's lifespan.

Step 4: Increase your Voltage

If your stress test failed or BSOD'd on you, don't worry! It probably means your processor just isn't getting enough voltage to keep a stable clock speed. So if that happens, just raise the voltage.

Head back into your BIOS' overclocking settings, like we did in step two, and find your "CPU Core" or "Vcore" value. Raise it a little bit from its current value. I usually raise in increments of 0.05 (e.g. from 1.2000, my CPU's default value, to 1.2500).

When you've finished, save your changes and reboot your computer. Then, repeat step three. Remember, the higher you raise your voltages, the higher your temperatures will get, so keep a close eye on them!

Step Five: Rinse and Repeat!

Now, repeat this process (steps two through four, as governed in step three) until you reach your maximum safe temperature or your maximum safe voltage (again, Google your specific CPU for more information). When you reach this point, back your settings down to the last safe and stable value. I got my multiplier up to about 43 before my temperatures reached my limit, so 4.3 GHz was my final overclock.

Once you've done that, save your settings and reboot into Windows for some final stress testing.

Wow! after an hour, this guide is done! Hope it is as informative as I think. Any questions? Just ask!

Cheers!

Storm Vfx Breakdown

Franklin Toussaint led the compositing of all film sequences storm “Entre Amis”. Approximately 300 shots filmed in a studio composited on nuke.

Artemis Model & Texture Reel by Sengjoon Song