Thieves chasm progress

Thieves is coming along nicely with just three last effects shots to be done. Here's a nice one that turned out well. I start it with the original footage to show how much is practical..

Mailman rounding third base

Not too much to say here except that Mailman has gotten a lot of small tweaks and is almost there.

Thieves chasm continues

The thieves chasm ran into trouble a few months ago during development because the software kept crashing due to the number of boxes involved. I considered simplifying the shot, but wasn't happy with the other flythroughs, so I've gone back to the original shot, but now will need to render different sections of the shot in separate passes and then stitch them together. Should work.. in theory. Here's a screen capture from the first set of boxes that surround the opening in the cliff. That's only a small fraction of the total size of the chasm area..

Rendering remotely..

I haven't posted in awhile and this clip isn't all that spectacular - just a bunch of boxes falling in a black void. But it is the first render using a machine that's five states away. it becomes very handy to start adding new machines to handle the pixel pushing and they no longer need to be right at the same desk. Only the very beginning on this shot will be used to create an instant feeling of an avalanche. The useable part is so short, I let the animation continue longer where you can see that it's not all that many. It'll get merged in with the live action soon..