Render/Animation Tutorial

LIGHTS!, CAMERA!, ACTION!
So far, you have used Modeler to create your 3D models. The following exercise will teach you how to use the Presenter program to assign RenderMan shaders, cameras, lighting and movement to your existing models.

Navigating in Presenter

To start, we'll introduce you to setting up cameras and lighting. It is assumed that you have all your folders straight and rotation points set for all objects and folders with an asterisk *.

Open Presenter.
Press Command O to open your legs and pelvis model.

NOTE: You should see 3 view windows at the bottom and 1 camera view window at the top right. You control all the action with the script window on the top left. If you can't see the camera in the 3 view windows, reduce the size of the views or press the fit to window square in the lower right of the view windows.

Click on the line coming from the camera and move the camera so it's pointing to the right of the two legs. Use the hand grabber tool to move your view around and the arrow tool to move the camera.
To rotate the camera's view grab the round dot at the end of the line coming out of the camera and move it so it points at your model. You can also use the rotation tool (second from the top-under the arrow tool) and by clicking and dragging on the camera itself rotate it around.

NOTE: You should start seeing your model in the Active Camera view window. If you click and push and pull on the two squares that form part of the camera you can make your view wider or narrower.

NOTE: To change the resolution of your view in the Active Camera view window, click on one of the 4 display resolution buttons with a red dash (-) on each, located to the right of the camera view (Illustration 35) and under the VCR type of controls. Starting with the left button, it will show a fast box view (good for previewing animations in near real time) all the way to the far right for the best resolution which shows a more solid model, but takes the longest to redraw.

NOTE: The 3 Buttons with a red dash (-) on the top right hand corner of the screen control the resolution of the model(s) in the top, front and right windows.

Place the camera so you can see both legs and pelvis from the side and they should be located to the far right in the Active Camera view (Illustration 35).

Illustration 35 - The starting view of the model in Presenter
Assign a light to your model by clicking on the light bulb tool and clicking with it in the Top view to the right of the model so that it illuminates the side that the camera is pointing at.
Use the arrow tool to move the light around. If you double click the light in one of the windows or in the Script window you will get a dialogue box that allows you to set the brightness and color of the light. Clicking and dragging on the 4 vertices of the light bulb in the 3 views, also allows you to set the brightness of the light.

NOTE: If you want the light to follow the model, then place it in the *Body folder by opening the folder and dragging the light under it.

NOTE: At the beginning of each animation you will want to set your Renderman shaders. You can use the following section to learn how to use Renderman shaders.

Working with RenderMan Shaders

Presenter provides fast ray and Phong shaders and offers outstanding support for RenderMan, the rendering tool used by special effects leaders like ILM and Pixar. This tutorial will introduce the use of Renderman for this example.

In the Script window, double click on the folder or object name that you wish to apply a shader to in order to get its Info Dialogue box.
Go to the Windows menu and select Attributes.
Select Shaders from the pop-up menu at the top of the Attributes box and scroll down to find the right shader.
Drag the shader icon to the bottom rectangle of the Base Info Dialogue box. To delete a shader, drag it to the top right or bottom left of the screen.

NOTE: You only need to assign a shader(s) to the main folder to automatically assign the shader to everything in it. If you want a certain part(s) to have a different shader, then double click the name of that item in the Script window and assign it a different shader.

NOTE: Hide Suede, Rubber or Plastic are shaders that work well for skin. Cloth works nicely for hair, but has a tendency to break in places so you might need two hair models on top of each other with the larger one having cloth for a shader and the smaller one the Matte shader.

Double click the shader icon to change the shader's settings. See Illustration 36 for an explanation of the 6 little icons to the left of the shader icon.
Double click *Body folder, go to the Windows menu and select Attributes. For Attributes select Shaders and find Hide, Suede.

Illustration 36 - The Shader icon and its control features
Close the Attributes box by pressing Command W or click in the top left corner square. After assigning a shader to a folder or object, you should see a small red square next to the folder or object that you assigned a shader to.
In the Render Control Palette at the top, for Render Type (to the right of the camera) use the same settings as in Illustration 37. You only need to click on the Renderman shader button - 3rd one. You should have RenderMan selected for Render Type. 8.

Illustration 37 - The Render Control Palette
In the top left hand corner of your screen, click once on the word Renderman... This will open the RenderMan dialogue box (Illustration 38). For Image Size: pick 640x480 (8.8 in.x6.6 in.) for the final rendering size.

Illustration 38 - The RenderMan Parameters for Rendering Outside Presenter

NOTE: To render within Presenter, you use the settings found in Illustration 39. You do not quit Presenter, but instead watch the progress of the rendering. It takes more memory to render within Presenter than to just write a RIB file and then quite Presenter to place the RIB file into the Render Spool folder. For now, use the same settings as those in Illustration 38.

NOTE: To produce a RenderMan RIB file for rendering outside of Presenter, you click in the box next to Write RIB Only to put an X in it. For Send output to: select PICT from the pop-up menu. After writing the RIB file, you quit Presenter and put the RIB file into the Render Spool folder found on the desktop.

Illustration 39 - The RenderMan Parameters for Rendering Inside Presenter

Click Rman Setup... for more settings. See Illustration 40. Set your Sampling and Default Shading Rate to the numbers indicated there. in Illustration 40

Illustration 40 - The RMan Setup Dialogue Window
Click the camera icon in the Render Control Palette to render one frame.
For animations, click the movie camera icon.

NOTE: Your image should start rendering fine. After it's done rendering, your image should appear on the hard drive as a PICT image file or a PICS animation file.

Animating the Two Legs

After setting and testing your Renderman shaders, it's time to assign animation settings to your two-legged model using forward kinematics. This style of animation requires that the rotations be applied as time events as the animation is being set up. To repeat motions in Presenter 3D only requires that the event be copied and positioned at a new point (frame) in time. Presenter 3D provides the ability to preset the movements as behaviors (morph instances) as part of the character's description, along with color and render attributes, that can be applied at any time.

For this example, we'll demonstrate the techniques used in forward kinematics..

In the Script palette to the right of the list of all objects and underneath the 00:00 time, move the blue arrow that points down to the right and under the 00:01 time setting. This means that you are now going to have the body perform a movement 1 second after the start of your animation.
Double click on the *Body folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Offset, in the z box, type -0.5. Close the dialogue box.

NOTE: Notice that the body is in a forward position and that there is a small red circle in the Script palette next to the *Body folder and under the 00:01 time setting. You can double click on that red circle anytime and change the settings.

Open the *Body folder and double click on the *Entire R. Leg folder. In the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type 35 in the x box (1st box of the 3 x,y & z boxes). Close the dialogue box.
The entire right leg should be raised forward in a marching position.
Double click on the folder *Entire L. Leg and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type -5 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the folder *L. Lwr Leg and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotate
ion, type -15 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *shoe that's inside the *L. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type 5 in the x box.

NOTE: You should have 5 small red circles underneath the 00:01 time line which indicate which parts have moved at this time. See Illustration 41.

Illustration 41 - The second view of the model after 1 second of animation

Drag the blue arrow that points down under the 00:01 time to under the 00:02 time.
Double click the *Body folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Offset, in the z box, type -1. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *Entire R. Leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type 10 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *R. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type -10 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *Entire L. Leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type 0 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *L. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type -50 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *shoe in the *L. Lwr. leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type 0 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.

NOTE: See Illustration 42 to see what your image should look like after 2 seconds of animation.

Illustration 42 - The third view of the model after 2 seconds of animation

NOTE: Check out your animation, so far by Moving the slider under the Active Camera window to the left to rewind and then move it to the right, or press the play button. To see the model move faster set all your views to fast boxes. Press the stop button next to the play button to end your animation preview.

Drag the blue arrow that points down under the 00:02 time to under the 00:03 time.
Double click the *Body folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Offset, in the z box, type -1.4. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *Entire L. Leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type 35 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *L. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type 0 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *Entire R. Leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Rotation, type -5 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *R. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type -5 in the x box. Close the dialogue box.
Double click on the *shoe in the *R. Lwr leg folder and in the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type 10. Close the dialogue box.

NOTE: Your Active Camera view should now look like Illustration 43.

Illustration 43 - The fourth view of the model after 3 seconds of animation

Drag the blue arrow that points down under the 00:03 time to under the 00:04 time.
Double click the *Body folder and in the Base Information dialogue box next to Offset, in the z box, type -1.9. Close the dialogue box.
29. In the Base Information dialogue box, next to Rotation, type the following settings for these objects and folders:

NOTE: Your fifth view at 4 seconds of animation should look like Illustration 44. Play the animation.

Illustration 44 - The fifth view of the model after 4 seconds of animation

Continue moving the legs all the way up to 8 seconds. You can use the same rotation settings for the 5th second as you did for the 1st second. For the 6th second refer to rotation settings at the 2nd second, for the 7th second refer to the rotation settings used in the 3rd second and so on. But, you can't use old settings for moving the *Body folder forward.

TIP: An easy way to duplicate the previous animation settings is to select all the red dots lined up vertically under the 1st second mark except for the one that moves the body forward (you will have to set that manually, later) and while pressing the Option key down, drag the duplicate settings under the 5th second mark.

NOTE: The chart in Illustration 45 summarizes the animation settings for the legs but only 4 seconds for the body.

Illustration 45 - A chart of the walking sequence with only the legs

NOTE: Illustration 46 shows a Forward Kinematics walking sequence for the entire body.

Illustration 35 - The starting view of the model in Presenter

Illustration 36 - The Shader icon and its control features

Illustration 37 - The Render Control Palette