I finally got that damned render finished after over 175 hours of processing. Processing that I couldn't interrupt. Processing which didn't let me use Maya and slowed Nova and MC down by like 90%.

I'm really, really bitter about this bloody thing. But it looks nice!

A little status report for those interested in Beta for the second installment of Anathema: I ended up taking the plot further than I had originally intended in the second chapter, hence the 4-day delay on beta release. I'm now scripting the final mission, and will probably get the beta uploaded and distributed by Friday evening.

Finally, a hats off and sincere thank you to all the wonderful dev community for all the wisdom they've doled out to make this possible!

Very nice render. It seems odd that it would take so long...

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!

An interesting plug is going beta! And this render is pretty cool. Though I must agree with Shlimazel, 175 hours to render that... seems ridiculous.

At any rate, looking forward to this release.

cannot speak because his jaw has dropped, hitting the floor and making a big hole

Before you get your hopes up MP, remember this is just an installment; the plug is faaaaar from done. Glad people are looking forward though!

Cosmic, I'll send you off that image in a second so you can have some fun with it. I'm thinking splash screen for chapters 3+ now that I'm using your original Anathema screen for chapters 1-2. And the fact that half of those ships don't exist at this point in the timeline.

Anyhow, I'm going to take a nap now, but I'm done with classes today and only have one 2:30-3:30 tomorrow, so I'll have progress reports shortly.

That's the great thing about being a Communication Studies major at this school: no department classes on Fridays. Stupid Sociology & Anthropology taking up an hour of my almost-weekend

Oh yeah, the reason it took so long was that I had to stop the render to move to school after 82 hours, and the suspension wouldn't reload so I had to start over. Also, because it's a loading-image, I wanted it to be high quality, so I did it on the highest quality possible without putting the oversampling up past 4. Although I could have done 27 if I had wanted

This post has been edited by Archon : 13 September 2007 - 01:49 PM

prepares to have fun with image

"Jaw, this is floor... Ah, I see you've already met."

downloads image from PM
opens PSCS3
cackles evilly like a mad scientist
has fun with layer effects and type and star fields and lens flares and other technical stuff

It's gonna be good.

That's mighty pretty, Archon. My Jaw went off to get a degree in astrophysics. Sighs theatrically Jaws these days. Tsk Tsk tsk...

P.S. Can I call you "Archly"?

ah, the hilarity of spell checker.

Haha, Archly. I likee.

There was actually one blessing in disguise in the second rendering though; I forgot to put the Kane Band on Earth the first time around. :rolleyes:

unveils his creation

This is a low quality image .JPG. The in-game version will be full size and have all the color detail.

FINALLYsmall2.jpg (82.48K)
Number of downloads: 33

My, that looks nifty.

Aren't those Override ships? Isn't Anathema a Nova scene plug? I see a Voinian Frigate or two, and a UE/Fed Carrier hybrid with UE fighters??

Sorry, I don't know that much about Anathema, but it seems like EVO.

Erm, no.
There's nothing even vaguely resembling a UE fighter in that picture. UE fighters are red, for one thing. And not the same shape as anything there.
The metal whasises do have a shape very slightly remeniscent of the Voinian Frigate, I suppose.
The only thing that might belong in a different EV universe are the small ships in foreground - they look similar in design to Confed ships from EV Classic.
UE Fighter:

Voinian Frigate:

This post has been edited by Otter : 15 September 2007 - 07:01 AM

Nice render Archon.
The rendering time is probably a side effect of either:

1. A very heavy poly ship, as far as I can see, the rounded ones might be it, though that is pure guessing.

2. Lots of Lights which are complicated to calculate. If your engine glows are emitting light the renderer will calculate a load of shadows and light effects which have no overall effect on the image. This is especially true for ships far away from the camera. Turn of light emission and keep visible light on for all of those ships.

4. Are your ships reflective? If they are try turning that of. You might try to use a environmental map instead of real reflection.

3. You are using area shadows or other effects like GI(global illumination), ambient occlution. These are all really heavy calculation methods used to imitate real life, most of the time.
I would say that there is little to earn on GI, and area shadows could be replaced by shadow maps. Ambient occlution might help the image, but I would try without, just to see how it would look.

This is just guessing though, you might have a totally different problem, or a combination of the above.
Hope you finish your plugin soon.

This post has been edited by Modesty Blaise : 15 September 2007 - 07:57 AM

I think you're right on every point Modesty. The rounded ships have a huge poly count, and the glow/aura effects usually aren't rendered as light sources unless you choose to render using Raydiosity instead of Raytracing. Which I did since I wanted this to be a very aesthetically pleasing render. That by itself will easily quadruple the rendering time.

Little update: Only thing left to put into the Beta is a series of "blow stuff up" missions to keep the player entertained. I had a bit of a delay when I realized that I had like 15 placeholder graphics that I needed to make actual renders for. :rolleyes: