HD Animation Workflow

[Dave Buckley]

Guys

 

Recently posted a thread on here, solved the screen cature question so this post is a more detailed explanation of the other question in that post.

 

I am looking for advice on the best workflow to get a resulting HD animation that plays in quicktime/media player etc.

 

I have my animation in Max, i will render this as a series of TIF's, i then need to add titles, effects etc so which is my best route?

 

I want the final movie file to remain HD. 1280x720 is fine.

 

I just want to make sure i get all my export/import options/settings correct for each application used in the process.

 

Can anyone help? - will be displayed on a computer if this helps.

 

i may make a dvd version which i guess i would need to change to non-square pixels at some point for vieiwing on a tv

Edited June 24, 2009 by Dave Buckley

[squeakybadger]

We have just done our first 720p project, render settings were 1280x720 | Image aspect 1.778 | Pixel Aspect 1.0

 

Didn't really see the need to render out as tif files, full res jpegs looked perfect (and saved on hard drive space)

 

Everything was comped together in after effects, and exported as an uncompressed mov (and a seperate one for dvd res).

 

Then I ran it through Conopus Procoder 3 to get it out as a high def wmv (totally worth it, took all the pissing around out of video conversion)

 

Shame the client opted for the dvd version. The hd one looked amazing through my xbox to hd projector

[onyx]

Guys

 

Recently posted a thread on here, solved the screen cature question so this post is a more detailed explanation of the other question in that post.

 

I am looking for advice on the best workflow to get a resulting HD animation that plays in quicktime/media player etc.

 

I have my animation in Max, i will render this as a series of TIF's, i then need to add titles, effects etc so which is my best route?

 

I want the final movie file to remain HD. 1280x720 is fine.

 

I just want to make sure i get all my export/import options/settings correct for each application used in the process.

 

Can anyone help? - will be displayed on a computer if this helps.

 

i may make a dvd version which i guess i would need to change to non-square pixels at some point for vieiwing on a tv

 

Import your TIF sequence into Adobe Affter Effects Or adobe Premiere and add you text/effects. Render it out un compressed or at dvd/blue ray quality

[mattclinch]

TIF sequence? i'd say you're better of going for a TGA or RPF workflow depending what you're comp'ing in.

[Dave Buckley]

any particular reason why not to use tiff?

[mattclinch]

file size mainly, but rpf has multi channel support (z-depth, velocity etc) in a single file.

[Nic H]

tga has proper alpha, exr if youre doing big colour / exposure pushes

[Dave Buckley]

sorry to bring this back to life.

 

i never followed it up but now i am

 

with regards to the first post in this thread, i was after the composition settings that i need to use in AFX in order to get a high def animation that will play on computer.

 

i'm going to use this for my showreel.

 

so i guess one day i'll have it burnt to bluray, but for now, just something i can play in quicktime or something

[Dave Buckley]

oh and when i try and playback and uncompressed MOV it seems to struggle playing it back??

[Wyszolmirski]

I am doing loads of HD animations recently, so will share a bit of knowledge.

 

So here is my workflow:

I render everything to image sequence, usually I break things to different channels and than put it together in AE.

 

After it's done I render it out as mov with photo-JPG compression set to 100% - it's great quality but not great for playback (too big). So as far as rendering comp takes time if you want to change file format it's the best way to use that full quality mov as your source for convention. You can either import it back as new AE file and than render it with different encoding, but I found out that Quicktime PRO does the job in the best way. I convert files using Quicktime to smaller resolutions or different compression. From my experience encoding it with x264 codec gives best results and smallest file size which is probably exactly what you need.

[Spooner04]

Usually sorenson3 is the best compression for mov's. I imagine the 'struggle' could be do to several issues, video card, ram, etc. but I've found that if you let the video play through once in quick time and let it all kind of cache into the ram it plays back a little smoother after that.

 

You could also look at some other file types or compression types like an flv video or an h264 codec. It really kind of varies from one device to the other. If you could post some screen shots of your rendering setting in AE it would probably make it easier to comment.

[Dave Buckley]

does anyone have any examples of there completed videos??

 

basically i just want a HD showreel, one that people can view through a weblink, not vimeo as it's not full hd

 

i guess they will only see full potential if the computer they view it on has a res matching 1920x1080 or higher right?

 

and i will have another blu-ray version that i can send out on blu-ray disc?

[BrianKitts]

oh and when i try and playback and uncompressed MOV it seems to struggle playing it back??

 

uncompressed files aren't meant for playback. It's meant to be a final mastered source for you to use a third party file compressor to create the final files that you will be playing back. Either that or you'd export directly to a compressed file format from AE if you don't have a good third party file convertor. (they're cheap and definitely worth it)

 

Unless you have a killer system with an HD array that can pump out the data fast enough you're not going to get smooth playback off an uncompressed file.

 

 

 

So to hit your AE setup question, if you're only doing computer playback you'd want to setup the input as "custom" with you're image size and frame rate the same you use to render and square pixels for an aspect ratio.

Edited July 30, 2009 by BrianKitts

[Dave Buckley]

let's say i want to make this HD showreel:

 

what options do i have for presenting it in full glorious HD to potential employers/customers/clients?

[Stephen Thomas]

Normally what we do is create a dual purpose DVD that will play the standard res version on a tv but also acts as a DVD-ROM and contains the HD version. That way the client can view the good quality version on a PC or can connect a laptop to an HDTV for playback on the big screen.

[Spooner04]

what options do i have for presenting it in full glorious HD to potential employers/customers/clients?

 

That is a really broad question. I would pick your target and work backwards. I.E. if you are playing on a flash site then, you would want to export as an flv, so then figure out your settings. You could also play an .mov from the web or on your computer, so then go with sorenson3 and figure out what settings work best. mp4 for ipod/iphone etc. etc.

 

An .mov would probably give you the most utility but is limited to computer playback and could potentially get hung up on an older computer. Stef's suggestion is pretty good too, but eliminates web playback options i think. As long as you have your uncompressed footage then you can always compress it into the desired format/settings.

[Nils Norgren]

We use quicktime for all our compressions (except when WMV is required by the client), which we compress in "compressor" on mac (part of the final cut pro suite). For a windows product I have used "Procoder" mostly for WMV HD files, which are cabable of very high quality.

 

All of our movies are produced in HD, mostly 1280x720 at 23.976 fps, but also a few at 1920x1280 (same frame rate). When compressing quicktimes we master in uncompressed, or pro-res, then we compress to our various outputs, HD, SD, web, Iphone, etc. as quicktime H.264 which is the codec most often used these days for delivery.

 

Depending on the software doing the compression, make sure that multi-pass compression is being utilized, and depending on the likely playback scenario, and the content, you may want VBR (variable bit rate) or CBR (constant bit rate).

 

all our current movies on our website are quicktime h.264: http://www.neoscape.com/#/portfolio/films/

 

Having dedicated compression software makes for much better compression, working at the highest quality as long as possible, before compression is also preferable. Some day I will prepare and give the talk about video compression that I was due to give at DMVC 2009. There are many details that can affect compression and many strategies that can be utilized to assure the best outcome.

 

There are also types of shots/moves that will compress better.

 

My 2 ¢

 

-Nils

[William Alexander]

-Ditto Nils comments-

Raw uncompressed render out to image sequence, edit image squence then out to animation H.264-Best quality and playback, have to play with compression settings to optimize file size and playback. worried about web playback... render out h.264 quicktime to smaller res with higher compression as secondary links to the monster HD file. If it's any good anyone interested willvery likey view or download the Full HD high quality version.

 

I never waste my time on the high rez versions given the option.... if what I'm looking for is in the lower rez.... I will view the high rez version...hate wasting time on not so good reels and work in general

[Dave Buckley]

thanks a lot for your comments. eally really helpful just what i was looking for.

 

one last question. after coming out of max where do you go ith your still images? After effects? Premiere??

 

The presets in Premiere i think are what confused me.

 

After Effects more understandable. Would have thought they'd be the same both coming from Adobe

[BrianKitts]

All of our movies are produced in HD, mostly 1280x720 at 23.976 fps

 

I've been considering dropping down to a lower frame rate, I've always just by default ran at 30.

 

Nils, care to share any insight as to why you choose / use 23 (other than 7 less frames to render per second), and are you rendering square pixels?

[Dave Buckley]

that did get me a little bit, although i wouldn't be doing 30, i'd be doing 25, i thought drop frame was old school

[Chad Warner]

I've been considering dropping down to a lower frame rate, I've always just by default ran at 30.

 

Nils, care to share any insight as to why you choose / use 23 (other than 7 less frames to render per second), and are you rendering square pixels?

 

23.976 (24) is what traditional movie film uses.

[erickdt]

I typically render out TGA (because of the alpha options) image sequences at 30fps @ 1200x900 (expecting that most playback is on people's computers). Import as image sequence into AfterFX in order to tweak color and add FX. Import AfterFX file into Premier in order to edit, add titles and music. This rules because AfterFX links to Premier in the same way Photoshop links images with Illustrator. This way if you change your AfterFX file it will automatically update your pre-edited, Premier sequence without making you redo your editing. Export media directly from Premier into Adobe Media Encoder as a WMV file which, so far, has worked out well for me. I find that most people use PCs for which WMV is a good option IMO for quality vs. filesize.

[Nic H]

just wondering.

why not use a standard res? like 1280x720 rather than 1200 x 900?

[erickdt]

No reason really. I'm still learning alot about this stuff thanks almost completely to CGArchitect.com. I'll definately try 1280x720 the next time around. A quick question about that: should I be using square pixels in that scenario or no?

 

I mostly wanted to bring to everyone's attention the link between AfterFX and Premier which I hadn't seen mentioned yet in the thread. IMO this feature of the software absolutely rules.