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From: RobF
Subject: something strange outside...
Date: 27 Oct 2008 22:20:01
Message: <web.490675f067d4b8052d55026c0@news.povray.org>
I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about 500
people.

Comments and crits welcome.


Rob.
--
fitzel.ca/dart


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 04:28:31
Message: <4906cd2f@news.povray.org>
"RobF" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht 
news:web.490675f067d4b8052d55026c0@news.povray.org...
> I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about 
> 500
> people.
>
> Comments and crits welcome.
>
>

Very good! I wonder what they are waiting for..... :-)

How many different figures did you use. I see some identical characters 
(different poses though). And how was memory management? I have the 
experience of memory problems when I use too many figures in a scene.

Thomas


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From: Almalm
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 06:30:00
Message: <web.4906e87f94d8ad7385a1c64d0@news.povray.org>
"RobF" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about 500
> people.
>
> Comments and crits welcome.
>
>
> Rob.
> --
> fitzel.ca/dart

Nice image! Although poses of some figures seem unnatural to me (e.g. man in the
croud walking as though there are no people around him)...


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From: Christian Froeschlin
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 08:45:11
Message: <49070957$1@news.povray.org>
RobF wrote:

> I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about 500
> people.

I usually don't like renders with poser figures or similar
as they always look somewhat artificial to me, but as a forest
-um- I mean *crowd* they seem quite convincing. It rocks ;)

The placement may yet be a little too random, usually there
are groups of people belonging together in a crowd, closer to
each other and with similar level of dress code, or "lanes"
formed by people tending to follow other people which are
going in the same direction.

Also, most people on the street are not out there to pose
and usually have some sort of bag with them. Just looked out
of the window to confirm that ;)

Do the meshes need to be used as imported or it is possible
to make some basic pose parametrization in SDL?


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From: Jaime Vives Piqueres
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 14:32:29
Message: <49075A52.1090206@ignorancia.org>
:O

...the most impressive is the street itself: at first glance I thought that 
the people where rendered over a real street photo! Very good lighting and 
texturing there, IMHO. ...oh, and the crowd is great too! ;)

--
Jaime


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From: RobF
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 23:20:01
Message: <web.4907d55794d8ad732d55026c0@news.povray.org>
"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlDOTnet> wrote:
> "RobF" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> news:web.490675f067d4b8052d55026c0@news.povray.org...
> > I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about
> > 500
> > people.
> >
> > Comments and crits welcome.
> >
> >
>
> Very good! I wonder what they are waiting for..... :-)

For POV-Ray 4.0 of course! :-)

>
> How many different figures did you use. I see some identical characters
> (different poses though). And how was memory management? I have the
> experience of memory problems when I use too many figures in a scene.
>
> Thomas

There are about 75 different characters each of which has three poses. With 500
instances, there are sure to be clones next to each other.

My interest in crowds was inspired by a photo of a crowded New York street that
I wanted to render. Most meshes are a few hundred MB each, so I came up with a
method of 2D billboards each with a pre-rendered image on it. With a few
tricks, I was able to render thousands of people with less than 600kB of memory
per instance.

I've set up a web page with more information and a zip file containing the macro
I used with a set of 8 billboards.
See: http://fitzel.ca/dart/crowds/crowds.html

Cheers,

Rob.
---
fitzel.ca/dart/


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From: RobF
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 23:30:00
Message: <web.4907d7a594d8ad732d55026c0@news.povray.org>
Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
> RobF wrote:
>
> > I've been experimenting with rendering crowds. This scene contains about 500
> > people.
>
> I usually don't like renders with poser figures or similar
> as they always look somewhat artificial to me, but as a forest
> -um- I mean *crowd* they seem quite convincing. It rocks ;)
>
> The placement may yet be a little too random, usually there
> are groups of people belonging together in a crowd, closer to
> each other and with similar level of dress code, or "lanes"
> formed by people tending to follow other people which are
> going in the same direction.
>
> Also, most people on the street are not out there to pose
> and usually have some sort of bag with them. Just looked out
> of the window to confirm that ;)
>
> Do the meshes need to be used as imported or it is possible
> to make some basic pose parametrization in SDL?

You're right the people are placed randomly and uncomfortably close to one
another. As of now these characters are from all walks of life with casual to
formal dress code. Randomly selecting amongst these characters often ends up
with unusual combinations. Now that I've got enough (75) characters, it may be
worth adding a parameter for dress code.

The characters are actually two-dimensional billboards that are picked via
parameters to a macro. The billboard macro has parameters to select the
character, the pose (standing or walking), and the direction (of eight) the
character is facing. These three parameters are used to build a filename that
selects the specific billboard image.

Thanks!

Rob.


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From: RobF
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 28 Oct 2008 23:40:01
Message: <web.4907da5794d8ad732d55026c0@news.povray.org>
Jaime Vives Piqueres <jai### [at] ignoranciaorg> wrote:
> :O
>
> ...the most impressive is the street itself: at first glance I thought that
> the people where rendered over a real street photo! Very good lighting and
> texturing there, IMHO. ...oh, and the crowd is great too! ;)
>
> --
> Jaime

Thanks!

The crowd scene was a bit of a diversion from the street scene I've been working
on for a few months. Here's the current WIP of the rest of the street. All the
people are billboards except for the foreground couple.  Comments welcome.

More images from this project are here:
http://fitzel.ca/dart/metro/fall.html

Rob.


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 29 Oct 2008 04:45:13
Message: <49082299$1@news.povray.org>
"RobF" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4907d55794d8ad732d55026c0@news.povray.org...
>
> There are about 75 different characters each of which has three poses. 
> With 500
> instances, there are sure to be clones next to each other.
>
> My interest in crowds was inspired by a photo of a crowded New York street 
> that
> I wanted to render. Most meshes are a few hundred MB each, so I came up 
> with a
> method of 2D billboards each with a pre-rendered image on it. With a few
> tricks, I was able to render thousands of people with less than 600kB of 
> memory
> per instance.

Ah yes, that makes sense. I have used that billboard trick before, before I 
started with Poser in fact, by using photographs. Interesting to combine it 
with Poser figures. In fact the results are much better and easier to 
control

>
> I've set up a web page with more information and a zip file containing the 
> macro
> I used with a set of 8 billboards.
> See: http://fitzel.ca/dart/crowds/crowds.html

Thank you! I shall have a look at it!

Thomas


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From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: something strange outside...
Date: 29 Oct 2008 04:56:01
Message: <49082521$1@news.povray.org>
"RobF" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4907da5794d8ad732d55026c0@news.povray.org...
> The crowd scene was a bit of a diversion from the street scene I've been 
> working
> on for a few months. Here's the current WIP of the rest of the street. All 
> the
> people are billboards except for the foreground couple.  Comments welcome.
>

Looking good. The flags need more variation though. Too visible that only 
one pose was used :-)

For some reason, the billboard effect is a tiny bit less convincing in this 
scene, perhaps because one knows about it now... Or because the poses 
themselves are not entirely in accordance with street life (with the 
exception of the woman with the cell phone).

Thomas


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