GOING IN CIRCLES.

 In the words of Meatloaf or possibly Todd Rundgren I'm going to have to "Sleep on it." I have but that's another problem.

 I have about 10% of the Christmas video sorted, possibly more as I have abandoned things that don't work. I have done the first and last images that go on the hoarding thingy in Photoshop at stupid resolution. Don't know why as it's only video and most folk I send it to will glance at it on a phone and go, fine or crap or Ta or What! 

This short bit of video will go on a hoarding that changes the images on triangular section panels like the one with girls from last week. This is the video, It is just a piece of plate with stuff cut into it, spot lights behind with one of the lights animated and volumetrics added to hopefully give crepuscular rays It's far from as exciting as I imagined but I still have time to refine it. The hoarding I will then pop into a scene, a snowy one with a Christmas tree, I think. Happen pop other moving stuff on the tree or get fed up and move the camera instead.

I don't like the black band across the middle, I'll maybe pop another couple of stars in to get more light through. I don't like the lettering shadowing but suspect I'm going to have to live with it. It's a limitation of EEVEE. The animated light needs popping on a linear graph. At the moment it starts and finishes slow as by default Blender uses a Bezier curve for animation which is not a good look in this application. It looks dark but not to worry it is going into a brighter scene at an angle and will be an emission material in composite. Better to start off a bit dark as all photographers know.

This is a still rendered in EEVEE it took fifty two seconds or as I'll write it in future 52". It does look a bit funereal, I'll try swapping the blue lights for a pale green. And maybe tilt the stencil a  tiny bit. to get reflection from the holes.

It looks a lot better in Cycles which is a Ray Tracing render engine.

Much much better but at 3' 59" including denoise it should be. Sixteen hours of rendering for ten seconds of video. I don't think so. I could double the render time or up the denoise passes as it's still a tad noisy. I have tried playing with the fog bit but I think it's about right. I suspect one could get good at this stuff but one would have to sit for hours doing the same old thing whilst being beaten with a stick by way of encouragement from the artist in charge. I think Leonardo must have had a red hot stick covered in rusty barbed wire to create that chapel ceiling. If I go on the Forums some bright spark will have worked out how to do it in EEVEE, it will probably take a dozen or more material nodes a few drivers and half a screen to see it all. Not to worry I have learnt how to get separate screens across a couple of monitors now. I'll be able to use dozens and dozens of shader nodes......Pound to a penny the end result is little better on an I-Phone screen.

 Fonts are important as is kerning.

Have fun and don't forget we have a vaccine. Possibly lethal or incapacitating but as long as those most in favour of it get it what the hell. I'd rather take my chance with a virus that has a > 99% survival rate than some junk that is lining politicians pockets. I've as much chance of being run over by a bus than dying of Batflu. A far greater chance of being terminated by an angry husband almost half my age but that is just another cross I have to bear.

Such is life.