I apologize if this subject has been addressed in another thread. I couldn't find anything that matched exactly what I was looking for.
I am trying to figure out the best export settings. I am creating short sequences in AS and editing in Adobe Premiere CS4. I want the highest possible quality - good enough to be projected in a theater.
None of the codecs I currently have are giving me good quality. It seems I need to buy a codec like DivX. Is that correct?
If so, would you please let me know what codecs you recommend?
Also, when I export using the uncompressed function, the audio gets out of sync and there are other issues as well.
Thanks.
Export Settings
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Actually, you don't want to be exporting in a codec at all.
Just export as a BMP or TGA and then bring the sequence into Premiere (if you select the first BMP of the sequence you then checkmark the "Sequence" option of the import).
This is the way all of us who are doing high quality animation (indeed, even in other programs) are using. And, of course, you will then bring your audio in separately and it will not lose sync.
Just export as a BMP or TGA and then bring the sequence into Premiere (if you select the first BMP of the sequence you then checkmark the "Sequence" option of the import).
This is the way all of us who are doing high quality animation (indeed, even in other programs) are using. And, of course, you will then bring your audio in separately and it will not lose sync.
Hmmm, it occurs to me that you might also be asking about how to export from Premiere.
Just in case I'll cover that as well. Just export as an uncompressed AVI. Then you can use whatever mechanism you want as your final delivery (for example, I bring the uncompressed AVI into Adobe Encore to produce DVDs -- not HD in that case, however. I'm not sure Encore does HD DVDs yet, but it may be possible. I don't have a blu-ray burner so it hasn't come up).
I do produce DVDs which are then quite good enough to be shown in a theater (indeed, that's exactly what we do :>).
Just in case I'll cover that as well. Just export as an uncompressed AVI. Then you can use whatever mechanism you want as your final delivery (for example, I bring the uncompressed AVI into Adobe Encore to produce DVDs -- not HD in that case, however. I'm not sure Encore does HD DVDs yet, but it may be possible. I don't have a blu-ray burner so it hasn't come up).
I do produce DVDs which are then quite good enough to be shown in a theater (indeed, that's exactly what we do :>).
This is a good question. I plan to project a low res NTSC project that will be screened at festivals. (If all goes according to plan.)
I am still having issues with quality. I experimented with AVI uncompressed files and Quicktime files and both have given me poor quality. To be more specific, the quality is poor when I import the sequence into Premiere Pro CS4.
I experiemented with exporting as a PNG sequence and BMP and TGA. Admittedly, I don't quite understand that process and need to do a little research (the Kelly Murdock book might help).
I am new to animation and AS so I appreciate your help and input.
I am still having issues with quality. I experimented with AVI uncompressed files and Quicktime files and both have given me poor quality. To be more specific, the quality is poor when I import the sequence into Premiere Pro CS4.
I experiemented with exporting as a PNG sequence and BMP and TGA. Admittedly, I don't quite understand that process and need to do a little research (the Kelly Murdock book might help).
I am new to animation and AS so I appreciate your help and input.
Without going into Premiere, just watch the Anime Studio output in Quicktime (or other movie viewer). What's it look like there (as compared to what you're seeing in Premiere)? (your settings may just be out of whack somewhere along the way).
Can you be more descriptive about what's not looking good? What are the pixel dimensions of your output?
Festivals on DVD, DV CAM, or DigiBeta (or maybe something else)?
Can you be more descriptive about what's not looking good? What are the pixel dimensions of your output?
Festivals on DVD, DV CAM, or DigiBeta (or maybe something else)?
First of all, you need to render at the appropriate size. Remember you are rendering still frames here, and then Premiere will assemble them properly and make the AVI for you. That uncompressed AVI will have the exact quality of any still frame you make -- but 'knowing" that may be a problem depending on your computer setup.
For widescreen NTSC (not HD) I render at 854 x 480 (File/Project Settings) and 30fps. Rendering as a BMP will be as good a quality as you can get for NTSC widescreen but, as ST noted, will not preserve transparency information. Thus if you are composting this image you need to render as a PNG or even a Photoshop still. But if you are making your own background (draw a rectangle in the color you want and put it on the bottom of the stack -- it's that simple) then BMP or TGA is what you want.
After you render you will have hundreds or thousands of images for the sequence. In Premiere choose a project like NTSC Widescreen 48hz and then go to File/Import and navigate to the folder where you stored all the single images. Choose the first one and mark the checkbox "Numbered Stills" so it brings them all in as a sequence.
At this point this is the absolute highest quality animation you can get from AS or from any program (at this resolution -- you can actually render to HD if you want but that's not what you are after). Drag that sequence onto the timeline and import your audio and lay down your music and sound effects or whatever.
Now select the timeline and File/Export as a Movie. Choose Microsoft DV AVI as your format (uncompressed). This is absolutely the highest format you can choose in terms of quality -- the images will be *exactly* the same quality as the still images because that's what it is. Now, it will be huge (a half hour can run 5gb or more depending on the details inside) and it may or may not play properly on your machine (because you may not have the computer power for it) but you can rest assured it is the quality you want.
Just fire up whatever you use to create a DVD (I use Encore but any program will do) and drag that AVI into it and when it's done you will have as high a quality animation as anything you can buy at the store (well, image quality -- the actual animation will depend on your skills). You can project this at very large sizes -- we do ours at 18' or more and it looks as good as the big boys.
Note that from Premiere you can also output as an MPEG for your DVD (thus saving that step in your DVD program) but I'd only do this if I knew what I was doing (and you should like you don't -- sorry). The reason is that most DVD authoring programs will automagically give you the highest encode rate when you add your assets to it, and thus it's easiest to leave that alone and not try and figure that part out yourself in Premiere.
For widescreen NTSC (not HD) I render at 854 x 480 (File/Project Settings) and 30fps. Rendering as a BMP will be as good a quality as you can get for NTSC widescreen but, as ST noted, will not preserve transparency information. Thus if you are composting this image you need to render as a PNG or even a Photoshop still. But if you are making your own background (draw a rectangle in the color you want and put it on the bottom of the stack -- it's that simple) then BMP or TGA is what you want.
After you render you will have hundreds or thousands of images for the sequence. In Premiere choose a project like NTSC Widescreen 48hz and then go to File/Import and navigate to the folder where you stored all the single images. Choose the first one and mark the checkbox "Numbered Stills" so it brings them all in as a sequence.
At this point this is the absolute highest quality animation you can get from AS or from any program (at this resolution -- you can actually render to HD if you want but that's not what you are after). Drag that sequence onto the timeline and import your audio and lay down your music and sound effects or whatever.
Now select the timeline and File/Export as a Movie. Choose Microsoft DV AVI as your format (uncompressed). This is absolutely the highest format you can choose in terms of quality -- the images will be *exactly* the same quality as the still images because that's what it is. Now, it will be huge (a half hour can run 5gb or more depending on the details inside) and it may or may not play properly on your machine (because you may not have the computer power for it) but you can rest assured it is the quality you want.
Just fire up whatever you use to create a DVD (I use Encore but any program will do) and drag that AVI into it and when it's done you will have as high a quality animation as anything you can buy at the store (well, image quality -- the actual animation will depend on your skills). You can project this at very large sizes -- we do ours at 18' or more and it looks as good as the big boys.
Note that from Premiere you can also output as an MPEG for your DVD (thus saving that step in your DVD program) but I'd only do this if I knew what I was doing (and you should like you don't -- sorry). The reason is that most DVD authoring programs will automagically give you the highest encode rate when you add your assets to it, and thus it's easiest to leave that alone and not try and figure that part out yourself in Premiere.
Again, thanks for your time and energy.
1. My goal is create a 12 minute low res NTSC video
2.Without going into Premiere, my output in Quicktime and AVI is perfect.
3.When I follow any of the suggested steps above for exporting, I am getting different results that diminish the quality. Specifically, a Quicktime export (that is imported into Premiere) has jagged lines and loses crispness (despite checking “extra smooth images”.) Again, in the Quicktime player, it is perfect. In Premiere, it loses quality. In addition, anything white (i.e. walls) become black when imported into Premiere.
4. mkelly, when I followed your instructions, my results were, again, jagged lines and general blurriness.
Please let me know if you need more info. Thanks!
I am thinking that there is a setting is Premiere that may need adjusting. Could this be it?
1. My goal is create a 12 minute low res NTSC video
2.Without going into Premiere, my output in Quicktime and AVI is perfect.
3.When I follow any of the suggested steps above for exporting, I am getting different results that diminish the quality. Specifically, a Quicktime export (that is imported into Premiere) has jagged lines and loses crispness (despite checking “extra smooth images”.) Again, in the Quicktime player, it is perfect. In Premiere, it loses quality. In addition, anything white (i.e. walls) become black when imported into Premiere.
4. mkelly, when I followed your instructions, my results were, again, jagged lines and general blurriness.
Please let me know if you need more info. Thanks!
I am thinking that there is a setting is Premiere that may need adjusting. Could this be it?
Sounds very much like wrong import settings in Premiere. However, I don't have that program anymore, so I can't help here.
Could you test this with output from another source? Maybe even with some film you put together in premiere, render it out, and re-import it? Changing the content's colour sounds highly unusual, I can't think of a possible reason for this.
Did you by any chance forget to create a background layer? Because if you don't, any part of the screen which is not covered by any object will be transparent, which you might not notice because the default colour of the workspace is a very light grey. You could test this with creating a layer, put it at the bottom, and fill it with something unusual, like white and red stripes (just import an image with that). Is Premiere still changing the colours of that?
Could you test this with output from another source? Maybe even with some film you put together in premiere, render it out, and re-import it? Changing the content's colour sounds highly unusual, I can't think of a possible reason for this.
Did you by any chance forget to create a background layer? Because if you don't, any part of the screen which is not covered by any object will be transparent, which you might not notice because the default colour of the workspace is a very light grey. You could test this with creating a layer, put it at the bottom, and fill it with something unusual, like white and red stripes (just import an image with that). Is Premiere still changing the colours of that?
ST's info is good -- however, there is no setting in Premiere which affects import resolution. Anything you import into Premiere will come in correctly at the resolution it was made. And in the settings I gave you there will be no jagged edges or blurriness.
Now -- that assumes your animation is vector based. If you imported bitmapped images and manipulated them (like the default animation that comes with AS) you can get jagged edges if you exceed the resolution of the original bitmaps. I'm strictly talking vector art here.
However -- how do you mean it looks jagged and/or blurry? Viewing anything in Premiere won't tell you much (which is to say you can't tell the quality in the Premiere preview window). In order to see how your final animation would look properly you need to export it from Premiere at the right resolution and as an uncompressed AVI. And even that may not look right depending on how you are playing it back.
So, as a checklist:
1) Project settings in AS need to be correct. Check your output resolution. Render as BMP.
2) Import into the right sized Premiere project as bitmapped sequence.
3) Render as uncompressed AVI from Premiere.
After the above it HAS to be correct -- there isn't any way to screw that up that I know of.
Now -- that assumes your animation is vector based. If you imported bitmapped images and manipulated them (like the default animation that comes with AS) you can get jagged edges if you exceed the resolution of the original bitmaps. I'm strictly talking vector art here.
However -- how do you mean it looks jagged and/or blurry? Viewing anything in Premiere won't tell you much (which is to say you can't tell the quality in the Premiere preview window). In order to see how your final animation would look properly you need to export it from Premiere at the right resolution and as an uncompressed AVI. And even that may not look right depending on how you are playing it back.
So, as a checklist:
1) Project settings in AS need to be correct. Check your output resolution. Render as BMP.
2) Import into the right sized Premiere project as bitmapped sequence.
3) Render as uncompressed AVI from Premiere.
After the above it HAS to be correct -- there isn't any way to screw that up that I know of.
Sounds like premiere is making a proxy/preview image. It's a low-res placeholder to make editing go quicker. I think the issue is a setting within Premiere.
The whites turning black is most likely that you don't have an actual white layer. You can add white under the movie in Premiere (video on track 2, white on track 1). Or, do the white layer in AS (as has now been suggested three times, or so). This is the difference between white and 'clear'. What you're getting is clear, what you need is white. (technically, you're dealing with an alpha channel)
To make your life easier, I'd suggest you export a Quicktime from AS, Animation codec. Put that into Premiere, let it set up for that. The image sequence thing takes some set up on your part. Add a white background somewhere too (AS, Premiere-wherever)
The whites turning black is most likely that you don't have an actual white layer. You can add white under the movie in Premiere (video on track 2, white on track 1). Or, do the white layer in AS (as has now been suggested three times, or so). This is the difference between white and 'clear'. What you're getting is clear, what you need is white. (technically, you're dealing with an alpha channel)
To make your life easier, I'd suggest you export a Quicktime from AS, Animation codec. Put that into Premiere, let it set up for that. The image sequence thing takes some set up on your part. Add a white background somewhere too (AS, Premiere-wherever)