EI Technology Group Forums

EITG contest: Rendering by Numbers: GALLERY

2008-09-16T12:58:45-06:00

Hi everyone,

Please post your final rendered images in here.
The forums has a maximum attachment size (around 512px wide, 150k), so feel free to host them somewhere else if you want.

Render size can be anything above this (512px wide), obviously the higher resolution the better, but I appreciate some people don’t have the hardware to render such large images.

All the best,
Ian

Nothern Lights store back online

2008-10-01T08:52:13-06:00

Never trust an ISP’s tech-support staff to really find out what the problem is.
The Northern Lights e-store is up and running again and Ian has graciously stepped up to the plate to revise all the sample project files. Currently, we don’t see any incompatibilities with the forthcoming EI v8 release so you’ll all be good to go there.

motion blur and layered files

2008-09-26T06:55:03-06:00

Hi, I’m trying to render like a part of a road that explodes. I’m rendering it over a white plane, so that I can later icomposite it AFX. (if you want to know what I’m talking about see Andrew Kramer’s tutorial of meteor crash on http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/) I’m rendering the explosion (that I did using Dante) with Global Illumination. The problem is taht GI doen’t allow my plane to generate a shadow mask, so I’m rendering it with the layer tab. When it comes to motion blur, the renders are horrible, with white borders.
Anyone knows how to achieve this with EIAS?
Thanks

EIAS 8 User Pack: Status thread

2008-09-25T16:33:16-06:00

Hi everyone,

Here is your first update on the development status of the User Pack.

4 widgets and one bonus widget have been added so far.

They are:

1. Re-import on export
2. Constrain texture scales (Auto-Edit)
3. Animation triangles defaulting to off (added as a Preference)
4. Direct shader opening (select a shader, press ‘p’ = shader window opens).
Bonus >> Contextual menu for Shaders and Procedurals (see screenshot).

Discuss ,
Ian

Shadow masks with Global Illumination

2008-09-25T08:57:09-06:00

Is it possible to get shadow masks on a plane (ar any object) if it’s lit with Global Illumunation?. I dob’t know how to do it.
Thanks

Silo to EIAS

2008-09-23T07:56:21-06:00

I have been using Silo with EIAS for a number of years.

In addition to being a great modeler, I particularly like the very clean models exported by Silo to the .fac file format for use in Electric Image.

But currently Silo 2.1.1 exports models from my (new) Intel Mac 8-core 10.5.5 EIAS 7.0.1 as points only - unusable in EI.

I believe (from other posts) that exports to .fac from the current version of Silo work only on PowerPC Macs (last produced over two years ago).

Silo has not heeded nor responded to messages about the glitch.

I am aware of suggestions from EI users to save the Silo model to .obj and then convert the .obj via Transformer but this is an extremely slow process and often leads to broken models.

Object2Fact has been suggested, but I don’t own it and I am really trying to avoid a another step in the workflow.

I would prefer not to buy an old PowerPC Mac exclusively for file export from Silo.

Are there other solutions?

Has anyone had experience opening a Silo 2 model in Silo 1.4 and exporting it to .fac from Silo 1.4? Does this work? Where can one get Silo 1.4?

Other?

While the flaw has existed for months, the people at Silo appear to be feverishly caught up in redesigning the snapping manipulator right now and have been unable to address this problem.

It leaves me with a broken workflow, disheartened and wondering if the number of EI users with Macs purchased in the past two years is simply insignificant.

Michael Morris

Camera Map Movie on EIAS Page

2008-09-22T10:58:23-06:00

Hi all,

on the animator-product-page there was a sample-movie, which showed how a heli-cam-movie could be used in EIAS to create an animation with camera mapping.
There were some people with lights in their hands walking away from a building. As I remember the building and the outdoor-scene was modeled in EIAS, the people was real, the camera-path taken from an original heli-flight-movie and finally composed all together.

Does anybody know there this sample movie is gone? It was a great explanation for the abilities of EIAS.

Best regards

Frankg

EITG Contest: Rendering by Numbers: ONE

2008-09-15T12:58:33-06:00

Hi everyone,

In anticipation of the release of EIAS V8, welcome to the ‘Rendering by Numbers’ competition, our ﬁrst in a series — sponsored by Paralumino. The challenge is to texture the below scene using only EIAS, the best of the resulting materials will. We’ve set up several cameras positioned around the house that view speciﬁc parts, all of which you need to texture and render. The textures you create will be made publicly available, and will be considered for inclusion in EIAS 8 and the EITG WIKI. We’ll be offering prizes in the following categories:

_______________________
Best Overall Set: The most consistently high quality set.
Prizes:
Lighting Studio-Tools by David Stoddard
HDR Capsule - Solo Illuminators, by David Stoddard (HDR set)
HyperGlass by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
10 Tips by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
Dimentionalising 2D Images by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
_______________________
Most Complete: The best set providing several variations of certain or all materials.
Prizes:
HDR Capsule - Studio Lights, by David Stoddard (HDR set)
Lighting Studio - GI, by David Stoddard (Video tutorials)
Dimentionalising 2D Images by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
_______________________
Best Optimised: The set of materials that renders very quickly, but still looks great.
Prizes:
HDR Capsule - Distortions, by David Stoddard (HDR set)
Dimentionalising 2D Images by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
Paciﬁca by Ian Waters and Brian Pohl (Video tutorials)
_______________________
Single Best Material: The best looking, or most complete material.
Prizes:
HDR Capsule - Studio Lights, by David Stoddard (HDR set)
Dimentionalising 2D Images by Ian Waters (Video tutorials)
Paciﬁca by Ian Waters and Brian Pohl (Video tutorials)
_______________________
Biggest Contributor: To person one who contributes the highest quantity of quality materials over the course of all the Rendering by Numbers contests. These materials need not necessarily be submitted as part of the Rendering by Numbers contests, and may be submitted with their own renderings and project ﬁles. They must otherwise, however, conform to the contest rules vis-à-vis how the materials are created and copyright. This will be subject to a Plug-in/Shader prize, to be decided with the winner.
_______________________

Rules, timeline, Etc.:
You have three weeks from today to completely texture the project and upload your renderings from the supplied camera views to the “Rendering by Numbers: One” Gallery thread (here). You will need to render all textures using only EIAS. You may use third party Shaders and Plugins as long as they are free to the public and you submit the shaders and plugins with your entry. You will need to upload your ʻcollectedʼ project with your entry, so we can award the prizes. A link for uploading the final project will be given in the gallery thread.
Important: all of your textures will be considered for inclusion in EIAS 8 - so the more textures you submit, the more we will have available for use with EIAS 8. We hope we are able to get a nice library of textures together from this and further competitions in this series. Also, we would like to ask you to submit methodology tips. This is not mandatory. Still, if you have an insight into how to create a particular look, please let everyone know. We will assemble and post your tips. Letʼs grow the EIAS community knowledge base.

By taking part:
1. You agree that your materials can be included with EIAS 8, and the EITG WIKI.
2. You are not to break any copyrights in the creation or sharing of textures in your materials.
3. You agree not to break any copyright or the provided models.

Models:
You are free to use the models provided for the purposes of this contest, and only for the purposes of the contest. You may not redistribute, sell, or in anyway proﬁt (wildly or otherwise) from the use of the models. The copyright of the models belongs to the creators of said models, and it is they whom you would contact for further use of the models. They are: Wilkens Design Studio for use of the house and property and Evermotion for the use of the Bush and Bike (http://www.evermotion.org)

Tips:
1. There is NO reflection map in the project, please remember that you will need to add one.
2. Turn of Anti-Aliasing and put GI primary rays down to 10 to get super fast preview renders.
3. The bush model is quite high-polygon, it would be an idea to only have this turned on for the camera in which it is seen.

It remains only to thank:
Yon Resch the EIAS guru behind the competition and the modeler of the building you will be texturing.
David Stoddard for his input.
Paralumino for sponsoring the contest.
Nicolaas Wilkens, of wilkens design studio, is the environmental designer who designed the building. http://www.wilkensdesignstudio.com/ (this site will be live later in the week).
Evermotion for allowing us to use their models as props. Please visit them at evermotion.org/shop.php to see their full range of models and to download their free samples.

Download the project here: http://www.eitechnologygroup.com/contests/rbn-one.zip
(requires EIAS 6.5)

Great sites for free textures maps include:
CGTextures - http://www.cgtextures.com/
Vray Materials - http://www.vray-materials.de/
MXM Textures - http://mxmgallery.maxwellrender.com/

Right, what are you still reading this for? Get texturing!

Best,
Ian

Gallery upload: permission denied

2008-09-16T06:52:14-06:00

Hi Ian,

just tried to upload a QuickTime VR.zip (6.5MB) in my incomming folder and got the following error message:
“permission denied.”

Regards
Stefan

EIAS 8 In Beta Testing

2008-09-14T05:37:07-06:00

Hi everyone,

This is just a quick note (ahead of a juicy news item with screen-shots) letting you know that EIAS 8 is in beta testing. It’s early days, and there is still several months of work left to do, but, I’ve been playing with early builds for a couple of weeks now and it’s shaping up to be a really exciting upgrade. Work on the UP has also kicked off, more details this week.

One of my favourite touches so far is that OpenGL texture placement maps are now quadruple the resolution they were before, making exact texture placement A LOT easier.

More soon,
Ian