Some animation issues

[octopus]

Hello:

I´m about to do an animation project, it will be my first one, so i don know nothing about the standards in these cases.

I mean, for example what resolution do i have to render, i guess it will be recordered in DVD to be seen in TV. I´m thinking 640X480, is it too small?

Other thing is the codec, do i have to save the renders in AVI without compression, in order to compress it in the edition time? or du you usually save the frames as JPG or some other image format?

Then about Vray, the scene will be the second phase of the project that i show in this thread
http://www.chaoticdimension.com/foru...pic.php?t=7014

Basically, will be the same thing but four times bigger, so the poly count it´s going to be about four times too, and in this scene take about 7 minutes to render, at 700 pix. with the IR map pre-calculated. So any input in how can i do to improve render times will be very much apreciated.
Besides, there will be interiors paths too, would be faster to use photon map, in this cases.

Thanks

[octopus]

Please, need some input

[trixian]

Basic tv resolutions respectively:
PAL: 720 x 576 (non-square pixels), 768 x 576 (square pixels) at 25 fps
NTSC Full: 648 x 486 (square pixels) at 29.9 fps (there is also a basic NTSC resolution at 640 x 480 at 29.9 fps
NTSC D1: 720 x 486 (non-square pixels) at 29.9 fps

I must confess that I only do stuff in PAL, and find it strange that NTSC har an extra format.

I never render out my footage interlaced. If something needs to end up on tv, I let the final stage do the interlacing, as using it in comp. packages and the likes is pointless, and they prefer full frame images anyway. 3dsMax doesn't like rendering certain things interlaced anyway.

Tv standards differ slightly from region to region across the world, but won't affect you most likely. I usualy render things out in square pixel formats so I don't get distorted images when working on them. I only outputput to a non-squared format at the final stage as I want to preview it on a tv monitor.
I usually render all my stuff out to 32bit (depending if needed) tga's that are rle compressed. I do this all the way through until i make my final mpg or divx for viewing to avoid unnecessary degredation of the image. It is quite normal to use avi files instead, but my experience is that they are prone to large sizes and compatability issues. In addition to that, rendering to an avi from 3dsmax, if the render node crashes mid frame, the avi file will most likely be corrupded. This is not a problem when rendering out to stills, as you just continue from where you left off, and at worst have to re-render the frame it crashed on.

Anyway...there are more issues that might arise underway depending on if you want to make a real dvd with mpg2 files in vob format with chapters and stuff. This is realy not my area...I find dvd authoring quite perplexing actually

I hope this answers your questions

[Fabrice]

Just to complete Trixian :

Rendering fields will make camera moves much more smooth (25 vs 50 frames per s in Pal) but the irr map will be computed for each field !

If you use pre-calculated Irrmap then be careful with caustics...they should appear so strange (IMO I think u can't use caustics with pre-calculated Irrmap, but hope I'm wrong )

DVD produce video signal so res settings are the same as for TV (look at render presets in max...) but if you want quality picture you should use more professionnal media like digital-beta or even DV Cam ... because DVD signal is creeps

...and when your done with your animation please share settings because I'm still looking for the way to avoid flickering-blotch-in-the-corners

Ciao

[pete242]

HDTV-experiences?

i am right now working on my diploma in architecture.

i want to make a hdtv-movie at resolution 1280x720 with 25 fps not interlaced.

one of my biggest problem is: how to get this for giving-away on media... i would prefer to make a dvd with mpeg-2-compression and different chapters, because my presentation is seperated in some chapters, but i am not sure, how to manage this. especially i would like to hand out the professors a dvd, where they can put these dvd in any newer pc or mac to have a look after this.

anyone any idea, how to manage this the best way?

[octopus]

Thank you for the advises.

Trixian: Those are very usefull tips thanks. The idea of rendering to stills was something i tought abaut, now you have confirmed to be the best option.

Facrice: what do you mean with "rendering to fields"? I think i´m missing some things because of the lenguage.

Thank you.

[egz]

Just a small note. NTSC framerate is 29.97fps. For shorter things you may get away working with 30, but for longer things you could get sound sync problems eventually.

[Fabrice]

"Render to field" is to make interlaced video.

This means (in PAL case) :
- interlaced is 50 fields (720x28 per sec
- non-interlaced is 25 frames (720x576) per sec

[trixian]

Rendering to fields is just asking for problems. Let your comp or editing package take care of that at the absolute final stage.
Anyway, as you mentioned aiming for progressive frames, you wont have to worry about that.

[moruh]

hope this will hope:

1. Set 3d maxs setting out put size PAL 768x576 at 25fps, uncompress AVI. if you have 700 frame to render the scene should be 28 second footage. i prefer u set first render 1 frame to 100, second render 100 frame to 200 and so on until 700 frame. Just to be safe. who knows pc hang/crash

2. Prefer using Adobe After effect for composition. Now u can combine 1-100 frame, 100-200 frame and so on into one desire scene which 28second footage. Here in Adobe after effect you can adjust the contrast, brightness, curves, glow, etc. effect as you wanted. in AE, composition>Add to render Queue. You also can adjust the size, decoder but prefer render with uncompress AVI so the quality stay remain.

3. For final composition DVD, use adobe premier pro. But beware with safe frame bcoz sometimes when u play in DVD player, found-up that the movie will crop depanding player, PAL - NTSC. so u hav to use PAL version DVD player. But not for pc or mac. You also can use Sonic MYDVD software for DVD chapter/ burner since for beginner

p/s sorry, english quite bad, cheers

[Da_elf]

i should just add this. NEVER! render from max as an avi. its the most useless output. TGA or TIF sequence makes the most sence. Basically for one major reason in my book. Power goes off or windows crashes or max crashes or any of these things to halt your rendering on a 6000 frame animtion and you were at frame 4000 basically your 4000 frames are screwed. As an image sequence you have but to start back rendering where you left off. If in the case you claim not to have a NLE package or compositing package to put it together id just point out to use max's video post. Have no scene event. add an image input event. open your images as a sequence .ifl and then add an output sequence into the avi or mov or whatever you decide.

[octopus]

Thank you guys for your info.

All this is very helpfull for me, but now my bigger concern is that the client hadn´t answer to my budget.

I guess he went on vacations

Nevertheless (does that word exist?) this is all helpfull.

What i allready now for shure is that i´m rendering to frames, i don´t want to take the risk of loosing more than one frame.

I can get the hands on premier pro from a friend of mine, but heard a lot lately from after effect, are there many diferences between the two of them? i mean, are they complementary, or they just do the same sort of things, but in diferent maner so it´s more a user´s choice?

i hope i made myself clear, because it´s dificult to me try to explain some things in english.

Pablo

[Fabrice]

Premiere is an editing tool much like final-cut, avid, Media100...
It has some post-production fonctions but it's not really his part.
After FX is an excellent post-prod tool but not very efficient for ... editing.

If u want to put some sound on a few 3D sequences with titles and fade in/out use premiere (6.0 version is exellent).
If you have some video compositing or complex titles animations get on After FX (or Combustion) !

[SiSco]

note on DVD authoring

just a note on DVD authoring,

lately I hand out more and more of my visuals and animations on DVD. (combinations of video, real footage and slide shows with music) It gives the client a powerfull tool to play/brag about, and it can easely be duplicated and used in info kiosks. And lets face it the cost of a DVD turns out to be less than the cost of a high quality glossy print these days. With printable DVD media and a DVD case with a printed sleave one can deliver a fine "finished" job. Studying the authoring part had me busy for quite a while and making a choice as for wich authoring app to buy kept me busy for some more time. All in all I have recently found a "professional" package at budget prices that gives me all the tools I need (including scripting!!) If anyone wants to make their own DVD's for a low budget (no scenarist thing) then this is the app that I highly recommend. It's called DVDlab and is available in two versions, a standard and a pro. standard comes at 100 $ It had me making DVD's in 15 min without any problems and exactly the way I wanted. This must be the best, easiest and cheapest app of its kind. (demo version available for download http://www.mediachance.com/download.htm )

ciao