SOMETIMES SIMPLE IS GOOD
This is a simple animation of money falling from the sky. It is a basic animation with no bells and whistles -- however, it get"s used so often in my office, that a rendered TGA sequence of it with an alpha channel lives permanently on a file server on our network -- it is never more than a couple of mouse clicks away. It is amazing to me, how many of our clients want something that I think is "cheesy"...I guess it is just "cheesy" enough. It has been used for FURNITURE COMMERCIALS, AUTOMOTIVE COMMERCIALS, DIRECT RESPONSE ADS, INFOMERCIALS, as well as other projects that I am not even aware of. All the editors here have probably been forced to use it against their better judgement at one time or another.
SIMPLICITY EQUALS VALUE
To do this type of animation "right", the bills should be deforming as they fall. This animation doesn"t do that, but that is why it is inexpensive. It is still a very good deal though...you get over 100 "bill" objects that fall and tumble.
SIMPLICITY EQUALS SPEED
The simple nature of this scene lends itself to fast rendering when a client is pushing you for time. Fully surfaced with the U.S. currency maps and rendered for TV with motion blur, the frames render at 7 to 10 seconds per frame.
SURFACE REQUIREMENTS
This model does not come with the bitmaps for the U.S. currency. The currency shown in the thumbnails and preview clip are from a collection we purchased from TurboSquid years ago. The collection of cash is called "300+ Money Textures" by viRez. The product by viRez appears to have some bad ratings, but I can personally vouch for them. We bought the collection, literally years ago, and have used this animation so many times that it has returned its own dollar amount 40 to 50 times over. For TV resolution this collection is good. I don"t have any affiliation with viRez, but I hate to see bad ratings associated with useful products. There is a link to viRez"s texture collection in the panel on the right side of this screen.
LIGHTS CAMERA ACTION
This scene is fully animated (see preview). The money falls for 7 seconds. The lighting setup is very simple, and was just setup for the purposes of rendering the preview. A "dome lid" of omnis was created for the top, with a small bottom fill from 1 omni that is below the scene. Most likely, you will use your own lighting setup that will match the specific needs of your project. However, if you want to use our temporary lighting setup, you can -- but, if you are rendering frames and not a still, be sure to check the shadow map settings on the lights to ensure you use settings that will not cause the shadows to jitter or "roll". You only need to adjust one light from the top "omni dome lid" light rig...the omnis are instanced, so adjusting one light will adjust all the instances of that light. The bottom omni light that is the "fill", is not part of the instanced rig, so you will have to adjust it separately.
TYPICAL USES FOR THIS FILE
This file is typically used in motion graphics and/or compositing situations. The scene is meant to be rendered out as a TGA sequence or other output with ALPHA. Then the sequence is used as an element in a larger, overall composition with other elements and footage -- using Flame, Combustion, After Effects, Shake, etc.
