First animation, from the begining.

[pablo scapi]

Hello:

 

I´m about to start a 2 min. animation, just waiting the confirmation from the client. But i´ve just did some personal test long time ago, so i have some questions for the experienced people in the forum.

 

1.- First the resolution; I´m going to do a DVD in PAL, but do i need to render at 768x576 or a resolution of ... let´s say 600x450 could do the job. Obviusly the biger the best, but i´m tring to reduce render time.

 

2.- Then the antialiasing, i´m thinking of using video, guess thats what is made for ¿Isn´t?

 

Well if the client says yes, i will start posting the progress so you can help me imporve the result ¿OK?....

 

Bye.

[raterry]

a little more info, i.e. what software will you be using to both generate frames and for post production and what is the overall scope of the project?

[pablo scapi]

This are just some test i did for the stills i´m doing and will post once finished.

 

 

 

SPECS:

 

I´m working with MAX 7, Vray for render, vegetation will be RPC for the animation, because Xfrog it´s very slow with Vray so i´m just using them for stills.

 

The cliente, wants an aerial turn arround of the buildings for start, then i´m thinking of tree diferent paths at peatonal views.

 

Going of render to tga format, and could manage to work in both after effects or premiere, (these are not mine but can borrow some office time).

 

At this time i´m most worried of the resolution because it could mean los of diference in render time.

 

Will keep posting...(if i definetly get the job)

[raterry]

The video filter is designed specifically to mitigate aliasing on horizontal lines so it's probably the best for your task but I'd do a few tests with with it to see if it looks ok versus render time. Speaking of render time...I recommend NOT rendering small just to to scale up to PAL resolution, but but you can do it if you need to as long as it's just for presentation purposes (not for broadcast) but don't use Premiere to scale it back up, you'd be better off creating a batch file in Photoshop and scale your files individually as PShop interpolates infinately better than Premiere. After effects may be better, you may want to test.

 

Something you can do to render in lower resolution without losing pixels is render to a size that would be the PAL equivilent to letterbox, fill the top and bottom with black, it looks nice and you'll render less horizontal lines.

 

Good luck!

would like to see it come along.

-=rob

[pablo scapi]

Tomorrow i´m meeting with the client and hope they finally aprove the animation, meanwhile i´m putting these images here, these are the final stills.

 

 

[pablo scapi]

Well here we go.

 

I have the OK for the anim. so i started to do some testing.

 

I render a few seconds just to stard playing in adobe after effects, i found that is similar to photoshop wich is great, so i thought i could meke the glow effect as in PS, but i found a problem:

 

1st.- I copied the original layer in top of itself.

 

2nd.- I desaturated this copy.

 

3rd.- I´ve adjusted drasticaly the levels so i have a plain black and white image to use as mask for selecting the bright zones in the original, but i don´t know how to make this, in PS you simply clic on the ByW layer wiyh Ctrl pressed, and you got the selection. Then go to the original layer and copy with that selection.

 

Did i explain myself? couse is very dificult for me in english.

 

Thanks, hope somebody can help me.

[Trick]

Congratulations

 

About your questions: read "Creating track mattes and travelling mattes" on page 262 of the manual (for v6/6.5).

 

If you want to make complicated masks from the original renderings it's alwasy better to render adjusted sequences out from AE and reuse them in your composition. Speeds things up a lot !!

[pablo scapi]

Trick, I will check that.

 

Meanwhile, i´m uploading a short sequence, where you can see the problem i´m having to render a smooth animation.

 

I don´t know why it comes out like that, perhaps something i´m doing wrong when i import the tga sequence? i´m thinking it could be something with each frame duration or something like that.

 

It´s not a codec issue since the uncompressed version is the same.

 

Download to your hard disk as an avi.

http://www.xente.mundo-r.com/octopus77/sec.jpg

[pablo scapi]

Trick:

 

I could do it the way you said, thanks.

 

But now i´m concerned about the jumps that makes AE when rendering.

 

I checked aout and seems to miss one frame each 5, it can be seen while it AE proces the film, when you got several layers and effects it goes slow frame by frame, and there i can see it procces 4 frames fine and the 5th jumps 2 frames forward.

 

Is this someting i did wrong in the setting of the composition or something, i have 25 fps for Pal.

 

I even try making the sequence of images in max´s ram player, i exported the avi and it looks fine, then when imported in AE and render goes like the one posted above

[Trick]

Make sure to set 25fps in both general AND (import)footage preferences !!

[pablo scapi]

Trick:

 

You spot the problem man, was the import preferences what i was missing, it was 30 fps instead of 25.

 

Thanks, you are becoming my guardian angel

[pablo scapi]

Have a couple of questions:

 

Firs, how can i change the path of a RPC car, once i trace the path i can´t figure how to edit the points in heigh for instance, to follow a non horizontal road.

 

Then about the resolution thing.

 

I´m trying with diferents antialiasings and image samplers from Vray. i think the fastest and aceptable solution for me is adaptive QMC min1, max2, with video filter to blur the sharpenes of the low samples, made a test and think it works.

Now the question is, would 640x480 be enough resolution for the final DVD output, i really don´t want to increase the render times, since is a 3000 frames animation an now i´m somewere about 6 or 7 nim for frame, (jesus that are a lot of days render with only two machines).

 

Here goes the litle test, this are just 200 frames for testing, this particular path will have 1000 frames, 40 sec. So don´t be alarmed by the high velocity travel.

 

http://www.xente.mundo-r.com/octopus77/web_1.avi

[pablo scapi]

Here i am again:

 

I´ve carefully read the post of rhino in the V-ray forum, he said that he render without any aa filter, and he add this in the post.

 

So how can i do this in AE, what filter should i use to avoid pixelated edges.

[Trick]

Hi again,

 

VRay uses an image sampler (Like QMC or Adaptive QMC) to prevent pixelated edges. You ALWAYS have to use either one of them. The -MAX- antialiasing filters (which can also be set in VRay's image sampler part COULD be set to none) actually are just an internal post-process to prevent (mainly) texturing artifacts, like moiré patterns coming from detailed textures (especially with small repeating patterns). The only difference is that doing this in MAX/VRay is that these filters operate on a subpixel level which is more accurate, while filtering in some compositor like AE does not. However if you don't have detailed textures (like brick patterns) and you work for multiple outputs (print, DVD, CD, web, etc) you can do specific blurring with all available filters in the compositor. You simply have to try things out, to see what works best and fast for your specific project...

[pablo scapi]

Hey Trick thanks for answering.

 

I do have QMC AA set to min1, max-4, i have set to none just the MAX internal filter.

 

So you say:

 

"However if you don't have detailed textures (like brick patterns) and you work for multiple outputs (print, DVD, CD, web, etc) you can do specific blurring with all available filters in the compositor. You simply have to try things out, to see what works best and fast for your specific project..."

 

So the fliter can be for example... a gaussian blur?, i never did such thing as a animation for DVD output, like now, so i don´t have a clue of the procedure.

 

Once i have the sequence loaded in AE, i apply a bluring filter and make the movie to an uncompressed mpg?, then to DVD in an author program right?

 

Thank you for your time, i´m relly lost here, and the worst thing is that don´t have all the time i need to play and test.

[Trick]

First you'll have to look if you can get away without AA filtering then you should look whether you should use QMC or Subdiv. adapted sampling. Generally if you don't really need motion blur, caustics, particle effects and detailed textures just use Adaptive Subdiv with threshold set at 0.04-0.06 (depending on fine details/lines) and NO AA filtering. This should really speed things up.

 

Import single frames in AE, do neccessary color and gammacorrections for the intended output (PAL TV or LCD) and at least do some 0.6 pixel vertical blur to prevent field flickering on thin horizontal details. Output to an uncompressed AVI and let the DVD-authoring software (or specific MPEG encoders like Sorenson Compression Suite, Discreet Cleaner XL or TMPGEnc)handle the MPEG conversion.

[pablo scapi]

Ok everyithing understood, just a couple of Q.

 

Once i have my uncompressed avi exported from AE, is there any authoring DVD program that imports the avi directly, because i have TMPGenc DVD author 1.6, and only accept MPG files, i also have winavi video converter to make the transition, but was wondering if there is a more profesional aplication that do all the work at once and with high quality.

 

Then about the format, my renders are 640X480, suposed to be a PAL aspect, i tried to make a test to DVD, and when i try to import the mpg to TMPGenc, it sais that resolution is not viable to dvd.

Do i have to fill the frame of 720X5.. with blak or something?

 

 

Thank´s again

[Trick]

Professional converters: I already named a few in my previous post. Myself I use Sorenson Compression Suite for the conversion and Adobe Encore for the DVD authoring. Be aware that if you use a seperate conversion program, that you must meet the specs of the authoring program that finalizes the DVD.

 

Valid files are either PAL or NTSC formats. I know for PAL it is 720x576: aspect ratio depends on whether it is for Widescreen or not. So if you rendered 640x480 with aspect ratio 1 the easiest way is to correct the aspect ratio and fill the rest with black; or try to rescale it to full 720x576 with the correct aspect again and see what you like more...

[pablo scapi]

Ok, i´ve made some tests and looks right in the TV.

 

Now the final clip will have four diferent paths.

 

I used to mix them in premiere, adding transitions and music, can i do this too in AE, or do i need to save my separate clips uncompressed to compositing all together in Premiere.

 

I know i could do it this way but was wondering if i could save this step.

 

Thanks