Animation

[mehrdadart]

Hi

I hope somebody will have an answer to this problem. My problem is when I convert my frames rendered in Mandelbulb3D into video. I render all the animation frames in Mandelbulb3D and load all frames in VirtualDub and export it as a 30 f/s XVID (ot AVI) video. This video is played very nice and smoothly with all players. But If I load it in any other video editing program or video converter like Adobe Premiere or ... and convert it to any format without any change in any settings, the result will not be played smoothly in any player any more. Why such a thing happens? I should only use Virtualdub in all my video editing process not to encounter such a problem. But it is so stupid and I need to work on my videos in other software, as well. What do you think about this problem?

I have even experimented other frame rates like 24, 25, 27 and 29 and nothing changed.   

Best,
Mehrdad

[Sockratease]

Could be the codec.

If RAM allows, work in uncompressed video until the final render for web presentation or disc burning or whatever.

If you have Adobe Premiere, why use VirtualDub at all?  Just import the image sequence to premiere and work directly from that.

[David Makin]

If RAM allows, work in uncompressed video until the final render for web presentation or disc burning or whatever.

I second that.

[mehrdadart]

Thank you for the answer.

Do you mean by "uncompressed" to save frames as a non-jpg format like png or bmp or to convert the frames to an AVI format file?
If you mean the second, I have tried it too. I converted frames to an AVI file in VirtualDub and I had a gigantic 20Gb file which could not be played appropriately on my pc due to the file size. So I had to convert it to other formats in other programs or converters to even be able to play it. And the converted video had the same problem of not being played smoothly. It seems as if some frames are dropped every 5 or 6 seconds and some parts are squeezed. The animation does not have its steady speed.

I have premiere, but I do not know how to import frames into and convert them to video and did not find any tutorial in this regard at all. Do you know how it works, please?

(I have 4GB ram)

Thank you,
Mehrdad

[visual.bermarte]

Please see http://www.animationsforvideo.com/html/imptsprem.htm you don't need to save an avi file, just import a sequence of images (jpeg, png,bmp,tga,tiff etc.) inside your sw.

[David Makin]

If I had the money and I still used Microsh*t then I'd get this:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Advanced+Video/Liquid+Edition/Liquid+Edition+version+6+Documents/Features+_+Specifications

[Sockratease]

Thank you for the answer.

Do you mean by "uncompressed" to save frames as a non-jpg format like png or bmp or to convert the frames to an AVI format file?
If you mean the second, I have tried it too. I converted frames to an AVI file in VirtualDub and I had a gigantic 20Gb file which could not be played appropriately on my pc due to the file size. So I had to convert it to other formats in other programs or converters to even be able to play it. And the converted video had the same problem of not being played smoothly. It seems as if some frames are dropped every 5 or 6 seconds and some parts are squeezed. The animation does not have its steady speed.

I have premiere, but I do not know how to import frames into and convert them to video and did not find any tutorial in this regard at all. Do you know how it works, please?

(I have 4GB ram)

Thank you,
Mehrdad

OK - I am not certain what you are trying to do here.

If making an animation there are several things to consider.  First, make the highest quality starting material you can  (yes, that means no jpg files because they produce artifacts upon compression).

Second thing is to define what you want to do with the animation!  If you just want to watch it, then use whatever compression you like (you mentioned xvid - that's fine for a finished product, but as you noticed - it is very unforgiving if you want to edit the video later).  There are Lossless codecs that are preferred to keep the file size manageable in case you want to edit later  (I swear by the Lagarith Lossless codec).

Remember that compression causes degrading of quality, and if you compress a video, then edit it and compress it again, you can get crap.

That's why it's best to know your ultimate goal before you begin editing.

As for watching the videos back locally, yes - 20 GB files don't play well!  BUT they are good for editing, then compressing into final delivery formats!  Render the frames into a video file of your choice  (I like .mov or .mp4 with the H264 codec because it gives good compression of file sizes, and is one of the more forgiving codecs if you must edit a video later instead of re-using the image sequence)  (BUT - you should ALWAYS edit the highest uality source you have, which would be the png image sequence)  (jpg is a No-No for Professional use, and bmp is the same as png except it has a smaller file size - I think bmp only still exists for legacy systems which do not support png format because both are lossless).

Back to Premiere - you import image sequences the same way as in VirtualDub.  Just open the first frame of the sequence.  If it only brings in one frame, there may be a check box in the import dialogue to indicate it's a sequence, and not a single image.  If it's there, check it.

Then you can add your audio, transitions or other effects, titles, and even etc!

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

[mehrdadart]

Thank you for the answer.

Do you mean by "uncompressed" to save frames as a non-jpg format like png or bmp or to convert the frames to an AVI format file?
If you mean the second, I have tried it too. I converted frames to an AVI file in VirtualDub and I had a gigantic 20Gb file which could not be played appropriately on my pc due to the file size. So I had to convert it to other formats in other programs or converters to even be able to play it. And the converted video had the same problem of not being played smoothly. It seems as if some frames are dropped every 5 or 6 seconds and some parts are squeezed. The animation does not have its steady speed.

I have premiere, but I do not know how to import frames into and convert them to video and did not find any tutorial in this regard at all. Do you know how it works, please?

(I have 4GB ram)

Thank you,
Mehrdad

OK - I am not certain what you are trying to do here.

If making an animation there are several things to consider.  First, make the highest quality starting material you can  (yes, that means no jpg files because they produce artifacts upon compression).

Second thing is to define what you want to do with the animation!  If you just want to watch it, then use whatever compression you like (you mentioned xvid - that's fine for a finished product, but as you noticed - it is very unforgiving if you want to edit the video later).  There are Lossless codecs that are preferred to keep the file size manageable in case you want to edit later  (I swear by the Lagarith Lossless codec).

Remember that compression causes degrading of quality, and if you compress a video, then edit it and compress it again, you can get crap.

That's why it's best to know your ultimate goal before you begin editing.

As for watching the videos back locally, yes - 20 GB files don't play well!  BUT they are good for editing, then compressing into final delivery formats!  Render the frames into a video file of your choice  (I like .mov or .mp4 with the H264 codec because it gives good compression of file sizes, and is one of the more forgiving codecs if you must edit a video later instead of re-using the image sequence)  (BUT - you should ALWAYS edit the highest uality source you have, which would be the png image sequence)  (jpg is a No-No for Professional use, and bmp is the same as png except it has a smaller file size - I think bmp only still exists for legacy systems which do not support png format because both are lossless).

Back to Premiere - you import image sequences the same way as in VirtualDub.  Just open the first frame of the sequence.  If it only brings in one frame, there may be a check box in the import dialogue to indicate it's a sequence, and not a single image.  If it's there, check it.

Then you can add your audio, transitions or other effects, titles, and even etc!

Hope that clarifies things a bit.

WOW. Very useful information, man. Thank you! But a few more questions:

1. For now, I am going to provide a very high quality animation around 5 min and I want to be able to convert it to any other formats later. I want it to be as high quality as a perfect music video or movie. Could you name the processes for a high quality music video?
I will render all frames as PNG. Then I should import frames into VirtualDub or Premiere. What then? Which formats do you recommend for a high quality animation? I will need one version with a very high quality playable like bluray films, and a lower quality for sharing on the web. Are .mov or .mp4 with the H264 codec  OK for sharing on the web, as you mentioned?

2. Regarding the "Lagarith Lossless Video Codec", do I need to remove other codec's from my computer before installing or not?

Best,
Mehrdad

[Sockratease]

You can install as many codecs as you want to your system.  It's good to have a wide variety, some have limitations on things like aspect ratio and other stuff.

The process for any video is the same, just import all your assets that you plan on using  (image sequences, video clips, audio clps, stills, and whatevers)  then (in most video editors) arrange everything on a timeline, save the project, and export to whatever format you please.

As for the High Quality part, just do the best you can.  Some delivery formats have different restrictions on file sizes  (even DVDs have a 4 GB or so limit on what gets burned - but the encoding compresses it) so experiment and find what works best for your purposes.  For the most part the H264 codec is among the best options for most things.  But if burning a blue-ray disc, and it's only the 5 minute animation, you may get away with very little, or no compression at all.  

The only tip I have for high quality is related to web delivery on sites like youtube.  I found, as everyone has, that youtube compression can ruin a video.  I got the best results exporting my own flv video to upload for those sites.  They don't have to convert whatever you upload, so it goes live faster, and you have more control over what you sacrifice in the compression options.

Hope that helps.

[mehrdadart]

You can install as many codecs as you want to your system.  It's good to have a wide variety, some have limitations on things like aspect ratio and other stuff.

The process for any video is the same, just import all your assets that you plan on using  (image sequences, video clips, audio clps, stills, and whatevers)  then (in most video editors) arrange everything on a timeline, save the project, and export to whatever format you please.

As for the High Quality part, just do the best you can.  Some delivery formats have different restrictions on file sizes  (even DVDs have a 4 GB or so limit on what gets burned - but the encoding compresses it) so experiment and find what works best for your purposes.  For the most part the H264 codec is among the best options for most things.  But if burning a blue-ray disc, and it's only the 5 minute animation, you may get away with very little, or no compression at all.  

The only tip I have for high quality is related to web delivery on sites like youtube.  I found, as everyone has, that youtube compression can ruin a video.  I got the best results exporting my own flv video to upload for those sites.  They don't have to convert whatever you upload, so it goes live faster, and you have more control over what you sacrifice in the compression options.

Hope that helps.

SURE! Thank you so much, friend. It was so useful and helpful.