Sequence with Partial Stars

Added the stars into the sequence, and they help A LOT.  Feels less like a cloud, more like space :-).


Other notes:
1- Bkgd galaxies are good at the end of the sequence, but need to come down a bit at the beginning.
2- S106 stars flicker for 1 frame part of the way through.
3- Some of the stars blink out oddly when they get too close to camera... not sure what the best solution to that is.
4- S106 dust opacity noise could probably come up a bit for more variety.  Or possible smaller scale noise?
5- M51 feels slightly overexposed in first minute or so.
6- Slight jump due to overlapping frames around 965.
7- Still getting the clipping plane wave... no solution for this as of yet.
8- Need BG M51 stars still. 

Final Sequence, Ver 3

Made some changes to the galaxy opacity, the dust layer behind s106, and the bkgd galaxies.  Next big change will be the addition of the stars.

Final Sequence with Background Galaxies

Added the bkgd galaxies to the animated sequence... looks good when still, a little odd when moving though.

Final Sequence Notes

Almost all the rendering is done now.  Still a few frames short, and need stars for the end section and bkgd galaxies for the beginning section.  Some issues are popping up, as discussed below.


- I rendered out the galaxy in 2 sections, separating the 2 with the clip plane.  The intention was to combine them in comp, and fade out the foreground as we transition to the S106 section.  Unfortunately, we see the movement of the clip plane coming closer through the galaxy.  I might have made a mistake with the settings, but otherwise it might be better to just have a single frame flicker...

- Dust fades in out of nowhere... The original intent was to have the camera push through some clouds to wipe the screen, but that hasn't actually happened yet.  I should probably render out the dust frames from the beginning.

- Some render artifacts that need to be comped out with a roto map.

- M51 in the background at the end looks weird... no other way to put this.  Maybe stars will help.

- I'm still not happy with the appearance of the galaxy.  Don't know if there's time to keep playing with the render settings, though.  I did a few renders playing with some settings.  The galaxy looks best from the side in screen compositing mode.  It looks best from the top with normal compositing mode.  Perhaps an interpolation between the 2 as the camera becomes more parallel with the plane of the galaxy might work.

Screen Compositing

Normal Compositing

50% Screen on top of Norma

Final Sequence, Test 2

Still a lot of frames missing... The dust layers seem to weirdly float partway through the sequence.

S106 Dust Comp

I'm adding a dark dust layer for S106 to sit on.  Here are a few test comps from its part of the sequence.

Frame 1500

Frame 2300

Frame 2600

Frames 500 - 1099

Here's the final camera move, frames 500 - 1099.  Obviously still have some stuff to tweak with the color correction and levels...


Frames 500 - 1099, Test from Kendall Litaker on Vimeo.