Animation Resolution

[stee]

I've done a lot of animations over the past couple of years in 3ds max, and am now planning on putting a showreel together, with music etc... The animations are all different resolutions and am planning on re-rendering them at the same resolution so the video flows well and has a consistent quality throughout.

 

Has anyone got any advice on what resolution to render these at before I start to re-render? (probably a week or 2 render time overall!!) I would like 16:9 ratio, but after that, I don't know a lot about video resolutions.

 

I would like to put the show reel on a DVD, and upload to YouTube/Vimeo. The vast majority of the animations are 1024x576 (I have no idea where this came from!! ), which is 16:9. For quality purposes should I go Full HD to 1920x1080 or is this overkill?

 

Im bearing in mind that if I send this to clients, I want it to appear on their screens as it does on mine. The current 1024x576 animations play fine on windows media player, but play as a crushed down 720x576 on VLC player, when in avi format. Is DVD format the way to go to ensure it looks the same no matter where it is played?

 

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[CJI]

I like putting my animations in dvd format as i get guaranteed playback from the disc which is what most people tend to like to play it rather than pulling a file to their hard drive. Quicktime and avi in my experience struggle to play direct from the disc (on PCs). Pop in and play is always the way to go, and DVD gives you that, reliablility is paramount in my opinion.

 

In terms of resolution most people cant play full 1080p on their tellies, only a few have it. And although it looks great with the extra rez I personally like to go with 1280 x 720 as its still techically HD and gives you a decent rez without the slightly extra render time and file sizes. Thats for normal TVs though. Comp screens are different but i still think 720 is the versatile format as its still high enough to carry on most PC monitors. Although im sure some will disagree.

 

After you have finished the main showreel, just save a downsized version for Youtube/vimeo streaming. Can't remember the standard size off the top of my head but it would be easy enough to find out.

 

Hope that helps.

[stee]

Thanks for that!

 

So lets say I render everything in 1280x720, burn it to dvd in dvd format it should play ok on other machines? I suppose its not a resolution issue its more of a format issue. The upload to youtube isn't overly important, but wanna make sure everything is ok before rendering everything again.

 

So, seeing as I already have 1024x576 animations, would there be an issue in only re-rendering the others to this same resolution, and having the whole thing at 1024 wide?? Once its in DVD format it should play 16:9 on any DVD player/computer, right?

[Nic H]

as soon as you put anything on a DVD it looks shit/

 

we do the majority of stuff at 1280x720 as quciktimes (720p) only going to 1080p if we are asked to (hardly ever) even then you need to make sure your assets (models / textures) hold up to that res, plus the render times increase ALOT.

[CJI]

As long as the Pcs have a DVD codec/driver (most do) then you shouldn't have any problems. Out of curiosity what are you using to output to the dvd?

 

If your happy at the resoultion no i don't think there would be a problem as its still 16:9 ratio. It would look perfect on the SD resolution and i don't think you would notice on an HD TV with upscaling. But don't quote me, you would need to test it and decide yourself weather the quality is acceptable to you. Some don't mind some do, its a personal thing and the usual Speed Vs Quality issue that happens everywhere haha.

[CJI]

I agree with nic that quicktimes hold up the quality better and if i can i would always use them. However if you need it to play from the disc on a DVD player or for another reason i've never managed to get quicktimes to run properly as the data can't be read from the discs quick enough.

 

How do you handle this problem nic or am i just crap at optomising my quicktimes lol.

[stee]

If your happy at the resoultion no i don't think there would be a problem as its still 16:9 ratio.

 

Thanks, this is exactly what I needed to hear!!

 

Obviously I want this to be high quality, but dont want to overkill it and make massive files where the quality will be lost. Ill keep them at 1024 and see how they look.

 

Out of curiosity what are you using to output to the dvd?

 

To be honest I haven't thought that far ahead. I want to research it now though before I prepare the animations for render. Hopefully the 1024 wide is acceptable, meaning most of the animations are ready to go. I mainly do still images, so am learning about video at the moment. Animated showreels are far more impressive than a slideshow of stills, assuming the quality is there, that is.

 

If anyone has an recommendations on software for stitching videos together with fades etc, and adding a soundtrack, I'd love to hear them, same goes for DVD authoring software.

 

Thanks for replies so far.

[CJI]

Obviously I want this to be high quality, but dont want to overkill it and make massive files where the quality will be lost. Ill keep them at 1024 and see how they look

 

Test one that you have first before you do any re rendering. Then you will know if its a goer before you waste your time making the showreel to find you don't like the quality or how it runs. You want it to be as crisp as it can, don't be afraid to bite the bullet and re-render, it's worth the extra effort.

 

If anyone has an recommendations on software for stitching videos together with fades etc, and adding a soundtrack, I'd love to hear them, same goes for DVD authoring software.

 

Thats a loaded question that ends up in loads or arguments in my experience haha. Everyone has their preferences. As i use After Effects for post production i have tended to stick to Adobe product lines. So After Effects for Post Production, Premiere for Video Mastering and general compilation. From here you can add audio and burn straight to disc from Premiere or move on to a DVD authoring Package like Encore to create menu systems etc. Usually you won't need to go that far but its sometimes nice to have the option. These have there inherent issues and substantial cost mind you.

 

Final Cut pro and Avid are both popular and used alot as well.

 

Custom Audio is a different Monster and can get quite complicated depending on the complexities of your animation. This is another area where a number of different software packages are on offer. Unless you NEED to do multitrack complex audio. keep it simple. Thats my Advice haha.

 

There are other methods of doing this, probably cheaper ones too. This is just some of mine. Hope this helps.

[stee]

Soundtrack is just pure audio, 1 track, so simple enough. The audio is chosen so its just a matter of aligning clips to match up to it.

 

When researching video software, I keep coming back to premiere elements. It seems to do what I need, and within the budget. If this show reel results in more clients looking for animations (fingers crossed!) I may upgrade to pro.

 

I'm probably not going to get into DVD menus. I want this to be simple, so that someone who may not be too technically-minded can just pop the disc in and off they go. If there was a menu, it would only say "play" anyway. I will put contact info in at the end on a slide, and on the disc box.

 

Ill test out one of the animations burned to DVD and see how it all looks. I've already prepared myself for re-rendering anyway so if thats the case its not the end of the world, ill render during the day at home and overnight at the office.

 

Thanks again for your advice, very helpful indeed.

[CJI]

Glad i could help, Let us know how it turns out.

[Tommy L]

Ive been working on my reel and Ive used 1280 x 720. I started off by using 1920 x 1080, but thats even biger than my viewing resolution on my screens and it felt uncomfortable to work with. I thought the size could only really cause problems.

Rendered a non-compressed .avi (huge file) with stereo soundtrack (out of Aftereffects) then compressed out of Quicktime Pro to a .mov file at the default settings.

Dont forget to open the .mov in quicktime and change the video playback setting to 'Straight Alpha' or the gamma is off and your darks look washed out.

 

IMHO the main delivery for reels is over the internet. I dont think sending DVD's is a waste of time, but I do think the format is a little dated in the 'I want it streaming now' market-place. Ive found that vimeo does a fantastic job of compression and streaming playback. You can also embed the player/movie in a website by just copy/pasting a link.