This bank holiday when most were sitting in a caravan or in front of re-runs of the da Vinci code theory debunkers, I was getting paranoid than my computer would crash or the codec would not funtion to the quality I was hoping.
Let me give a bit of history for the situation. I have about 4 units to finish my HND at college, the current unit “3D modelling and animation” requires me to make a 3D animation and render it into a working film file (avi/ QuickTime).
So after X weeks modelling and doing the ground work, last week I was in the position to do a “Low quality test” render, this was the full animation with no shadows, reflections, transparency or anti-aliasing, the results were good, and high lighted a few problem areas such as textures that looked good as a still be poor as a animation.
This test render of 33 seconds length (1000 frames at 30fps) took 5 hours so I knew from the out set that it was going to take he best part of a day to do the final version.
Sunday night I installed the latest DivX codec, and set the codec settings to high definition with ultra quality, as I did not what to have to do this twice. Although the DivX codec played fine on my PC, up to this point the encoding was a bit hit and miss, so I did a 100 frame test render to see both the quality and if DivX was working.
It was by the way 
So 7.30 on Monday, when I should have been fast asleep I was up and at my desk, I turned off all none-essential programs and loaded the animation. With a quick check of the settings I was set… and click GO.
Its strange how when you can’t use your computer you suddenly want to use it more.
The first 2 hours past seamlessly, with me watching MTV and drinking tea, but at around 12 the paranoia started to set in. “what happens it the power goes out?”, “what id DivX does not work?” , what if I open a program and it corrupts the render?”
It got so bad that I would not open web pages sent to me in e-mails in-case they contained video feeds and the codex conflicted and messed the video up, the last thing I want is my video to contain some guy been hit on the head by a comically large pineapple!
So it got to midnight and the rendering was not 100%, so I could not go to bed, what would happen if I did and there was a power cut and the render was finished but the power cut still mess it up somehow? So I wait and wait and wait.
18 hours 44 minuets and 54 seconds. That’s the amount of time this process lasted. At around 2am I was done, the file was on my desktop and I could close the 3D program.
Would it work? Would it look good?
The answer to both is YES.
If nothing else I now know how addicted I am to my PC, as I was climbing the walls without it, and I now have a new appreciation for the 3D in the film industry, my files were low tech compared to there masterpieces, how do those guys sleep?
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