HD animations and IR map

[cristoforo]

Is anyone outputting their animations to HD? And if not, when a client wants a high-res animation, what resolution are you using? I have only gone up to around 1200 I think....and usually 16:9. If going up to full HD, what are the best IR map settings to use for quality and time? I have to start rendering the frames for a new animation, so want to try to get the best resolution possible. Thanks.

[Smalerbi]

I’m just now starting to experiment a little with HD animations, so I do not have much to offer. When flat screen televisions first came out, most of them were 720p. This means, the vertical pixel ratio was 720p and that made the frame size 1280x720 at 16:9. Most of the new sets are now 1080p and this makes the frame size 1920x1080 and everything become exponentially more complex to render. As for the settings, do what I did. Take a very small simple scene, a few objects with a mixed amount of detail and play with the settings to see what may yield the best results. There are no magic settings but you can get away with a 1280x720 frame size. This can produce a very clean look but if you want to try the full blown 1080p format and play in the big leagues, you better have a crap load of rendering power and be fluent in compositing.

Scott.

[cristoforo]

Yeah...I think I should stick to the 1280x720 until the new render farm is up and running.

[rhino]

Most HD TV's have only one scaler to keep costs down, so even if the panel is full 1080 quite often the scaler scales everything to 720p first then upresses to 1080 even if the source is 1080. 720 being the sort of mid point for SD/HD/FHD. At least this was the case a few years ago when I was looking into it.

I find more and more clients ask for Full HD even though there is no real need for it as web/DVD delivery seems to be the base format. The uptake of Full HD seems much higher in the US than in my part of the world.

There are pluses and negatives to 1080, combined workflow for stills and animation is a plus but the added render/hardware costs throughout the pipeline is a major downside.

You can pretty much throw any float workflow on non 64bit apps out the window, CS4 is unworkable with 1080p EXR sequences in my opinion, even with extensive proxies. 64bit CS5 may alleviate some of the issues but really once you get close to 2K you have to start looking at programs like Nuke that handle float so much better.

I would say stick with 720 until you have the hardware/software to support 1080 projects.

[cristoforo]

Thanks for the input.

[Alan Iglesias]

Also, you may find that rendering to full 1080 can give an un-worldly amount of detail, compared to film or an HD sensor. I find that rendering to 720 and simply batch-upsampling to 1080 (for clients that want it) is not only easier and faster, but the finished product looks softer and more film-real than rendering to full resolution. We did the same thing when rendering for 65mm film (2.2:1, 5-perf vertical); we rendered to 2k and then upscaled to 4k before the film out. The result was a very nice looking image.

-Alan

[cristoforo]

Good to know......the 1280x 720 is already giving me a head ache!!!