Ice Instance Motion blur Update ? (Modeling Stack)

[NNois]

Hi,
Some time ago i've read some great things about some studios who's using "magical nodes" calculating motion blur in the modeling stack or simply just the latest sets of nodes by leonard koch doing the right calculations...

So as always i do need this kinds of features for an animation in the modeling stack (using instances etc...) but haven't the time right now to invest in it, and the caching method is way too time consuming in my case...

So a simple question, do some custom ice nodes are available to download/buy/etc ? Is it feasable to use LKLightning to a simple "motion blur calculator" ?

Thanks

[Mathaeus]

Well you can buy the external renderer, too. As far as I know, 3delight and V-Ray calculates the motion blur automatically for everything, including ICE instances and strands. I think Arnold too, but cached motion blur seems to be faster, something like that.
Supplying the ICE attribute to renderer, per particle or strand segments, as method how does it works with MR in SI, - seems to be limited, compared to sampling of entire geometry by renderer What attribute to supply for scaling, for example.
About LK lighting, I think Leonard did hard work to allow it for strands created by LK Lighting, don't believe there's universal node.

[NNois]

Yes it's limited, but this is crap, a total non-sens that softimage can't calculate velocities in the modeling stack...

And, it seems not resolved everywhere, i've looked to the arnold docs and he won't do motion blur on variing point count... is it the case for 3delight and Vray?
How they are doing, is it totally reliable ? rotations, scale, instances deformations are taken into account ?

...is maya work the right way for this ?

[Mathaeus]

How they are doing, is it totally reliable ? rotations, scale, instances deformations are taken into account

Yes, everything of mentioned in 3delight - looks like it always doing point-to-point sampling. ICE attribute is still an option (never tried it, anyway). V-Ray, don't know in detail, didn't tried personally. I got info from developers, I believe them.

For varying point count, yes it should be some additional data, how else renderer will know what is supposed to match in between frames.

I don't know for an absolute solution, anywhere. But, yeah there are levels of relative solutions .
Back to MR, perhaps it's possible to use some of 'duplicator' plugins, or just to copy polygons, in a way of mt-static-instancer. So you'll be working with MR deformation blur, then. In case of short fur, it was possible to transfer the pointvelocity ICE attribute from emitter mesh, at least in some SI versions (on polygon mesh, it is calculated automatically). Depends of what you're doing, as usually.

[Pooby]

You could possibly have a duplicate, and have it one frame behind on the cache.
Then subtract one from the other to make a velocity from.
I thought that the velocity could be cached though? maybe I have the wrong end of the stick.

[Mathaeus]

You could possibly have a duplicate, and have it one frame behind on the cache.
Then subtract one from the other to make a velocity from.
I thought that the velocity could be cached though? maybe I have the wrong end of the stick.

I think the idea is to enable motion blur, without any caching. In case of un simulated (in other words, just animated) ICE tree. Afaik, even particles are cached, no way to get motion blur on animated particle scale or particle size, using MR in SI. To make it a bit more complicated, no way to 'get data at previous frame' if there is no simulation.

[NNois]

perhaps it's possible to use some of 'duplicator' plugins, or just to copy polygons, in a way of mt-static-instancer.

yes, i think until softimage be smart enough, these duplicators will be the solution but it's likely the same song, none of these plugins is complete.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway ;-)

[Pooby]

Why is caching time consuming?

[NNois]

for me is not really because caching is timeconsuming it's because it's not enough, you have to calculate by hand pointvelocity,angularvelocity,strandvelocity etc... When you are on small projects (everytime in my case) it's time consuming. But i agree if we can repro a method each time it's ok but it's not my case ;-)

[Mathaeus]

NNois,

Don't know does it help, but anyway, here's what I used before.... I felt in love with Cinema 4d and Blender, for those small fast tasks.
Basically it's ICE part of mt static ICE instancer - but without operator for making the copies of polygons. ICE tree goes on polygon mesh. Suggested procedure is:

1: create mesh for instancing, having a center somewhere inside it's bounding box
2: create point cloud. Here's called "driver". It has to have initialized size, scale, orientation
3. apply ICE tree on mesh, in animation region
4. set number to exact count of vertices ( here's 117, arbitrary number)
5. select all polygons, duplicate polygons. If setup is correct, copies should appear on particles. You can copy all at once, or all in one "clone". Nothing else - otherwise it won't stick correctly
6. freeze modeling region, just to make it faster

Now there's ICE tree as deformation operator on mesh, working with any renderer, supporting complete SRT. Additional deformations are allowed too. If point cloud is un-simulated, nothing to cache.
It's not for huge numbers, "divide by scalar" can output something weird, I think at more than 1 Mio vertices.

For different "clones", things get more complicated. ICE tree goes on additional mesh, together with 'skipping' some points in driver point cloud.

[NNois]

Thanks you Anto,
I wish I had the courage you have, and have time to use C4D, I'm just afraid of getting in situations where it does not allow to make big last minute changes easily.
Is C4D had an operator stack like softimage ?

[Mathaeus]

Thanks you Anto,
Is C4D had an operator stack like softimage ?

It has operator stack for ages, but has no render passes. Anyway I think the comparison of type what feature it has, won't go so far. I wouldn't have c4d at home, looks like having a lovely copy of Microsoft Excel. But if 'streamlined workflow' in small everyday tasks is important, this app seems to be a king. Like mentioned motion blur from animation, simple on-file caching for simulations. Even working equivalent of well known ICE's (generally not working) 'set data to the group'. Nothing of that for huge numbers in heavy scenes, but this is not their goal, I think.

[NNois]

I,
So for all the motion graphics stuff I ended up this time with a compound ;-)

He auto calculate Motion Blur Velocities on unsimulated Point Cloud by dooing exactly what Pooby said.
Attributes calculated are pointvelocity,angularvelocity,strandvelocity, this is using herm... cachesfiles.
(Be carefull, you have to set the right frame rate or placing an expression with)

compound
https://www.dropbox.com/s/roystbp8xg0hs ... sicompound