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Making a Crowd?

DekeDeke Posts: 1,632
edited December 1969 in New Users

I am looking for a way to make a crowd of soldiers walk down a street. I've created the soldier, and have an aniblock of the walk. What's the best way to replicate this? I assume using Instances, but my attempts so far result in characters moving in unison with the master. I'd like there to be some variety in where each character is at in the walk cycle. Perhaps the only way is to have four or five masters--each with a different walk cycle - and then a few instances of each?

Comments

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited December 1969

    are you using daz studio, or other? different programs have different "Clone" options.
    yes make copies of each, and set the start-time of the walk slightly off.
    then only render when there all moving. It's a thought.

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,632
    edited December 1969

    Thanks. Using Daz Studio.

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited December 1969

    take all the stuff of the one shoulder (cloths, etc) in the scene tab, slide it up so it is a child under the root for the figure.
    select the figure root node...
    then edit->duplicate->Node hierarchies.
    select the new figure, and slide it "Transit" to the left. repeat till you have a row...
    then do that again to duplicate the row, if that is possible (you may need to un-parent each figure from the parent one after).

    There are probably other ways, however it gives you separate figures that you can change the walk start time, hopefully.

    I have yet to do animations my self, so it is a guess.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,759
    edited December 1969

    I would suggest making several copies of the figure, then instancing those to fill out the ranks. A crowd of individual figures will almost certainly bring DS, or most other applications, to its knees.

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,632
    edited December 1969

    Yes, in my experiments I've noticed a huge slow down. Takes forever to repo a camera even slightly. I'm going to try a lower res setting like "wire shaded".

  • ZarconDeeGrissomZarconDeeGrissom Posts: 5,412
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine is quite correct, I was not thinking about the GPU/CPU load it would cause, just how to make it as lifelike as possible.

    I need to remind my self on occasion that not everyone has a mainframe in the other room to do the insane computation for the PC, lol.

    You may need to render a row at a time, and then overlay the renders after the fact, somehow. (way beyond my skills)

  • DekeDeke Posts: 1,632
    edited December 1969

    I'm already do a lot of foreground background rendering and then layering in After Effects….helps in adjusting lighting and depth of field. The crowd will be a challenge as shadows need to fall over each other.

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited July 2014

    It would be a lot easier on your machine if you used something like this : http://www.daz3d.com/lorenzo-lorez

    There are also lo-res versions of M4, and you could do it with them as well. They are located in the runtime that holds your Generation 4 figures in Runtime\Geometries\DAZPeople\blMilMan_m4b_LOD , and they come in 1, 2, 4 and 17 k versions.

    Post edited by JimmyC_2009 on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,905
    edited December 1969

    What about Decimator? I haven't used it, but doesn't it reduce polygon count for figures that dont have to be in the front of the scene? I heard it's good for gamers too.

  • MJWMJW Posts: 539
    edited December 1969

    What is 'instancing'??????

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    mjw said:
    What is 'instancing'??????


    Instancing is done from the Create menu in DAZ Studio.

    It allows you to have several figures in the Scene, but only one of them is held in memory and referenced by the others. They all change appearance as the original changes, but they can be positioned separately
  • MJWMJW Posts: 539
    edited December 1969

    Delayed thanks Jimmy

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