I work in the marketing department of a state university, and recently finished my first AS project - it's a video that will be used for new student orientation.
I just finished up the DVD and it looks OK but not great. I'm considering this a work in progress and would like to improve the quality.
The issue I'm having is that there seems to be a lot of antialiasing or artifacting that is creating blurred edges. Compounding the problem is the fact that there are scenes with words/type (for instance a character may have words on their T-shirt, or there may be a sign on the wall, etc.) which seem to make the problem even more noticeable.
I'm looking for some advice on what I may be doing wrong and how I can improve things. Here's my work flow:
I start out drawing characters and props in Adobe Illustrator, then save them as PNG files in Photoshop (I use 72dpi fies, but Ive even tried saving them at 300dpi). My project in Anime Studio is setup as NTSC D1, 720X534, at 24p.
When I output from Anime Studio, I export the clips as Quicktime MOV files, with no compression, at 29.97p and Best quality.
From there, I move the clips over to my Mac and edit in Final Cut Pro.
When I output from Final Cut, I choose Quicktime with "Current Settings", and uncheck "Make Self-Contained File." Basically, what this does is avoid adding a layer of compression - I get a file that contains just the editing data, and links to the original video files. The original files from Anime Studio are used for creating the DVD.
From there I take the Final Cut file and drop it into iDVD (I don't need menus or chapters or anything remotely fancy, so it's just set to autoplay.) The iDVD Project Settings are NTSC and "Best Quality" for encoding.
I should also note that I have the following at my disposal:
Anime Studio Debut 6, Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 - on a PC
Final Cut Pro 5, Compressor (which I haven't used), and iDVD - on a Mac
I work in an environment where it takes an act of congress to get a piece of software installed, so I'm pretty much stuck with what I have.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!
David
P.S. I read something in another thread in this forum about doubling the project dimensions in Anime Studio to get better quality output files - for instance 1440x1068 instead of 720x534 - but I couldn't get AS to accept those dimensions...
Output to DVD - best quality options
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
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moviedemon
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Thu May 06, 2010 8:00 pm
Hello moviedemon
First of, dpi are for prints, as in, how many pixels are printed by square inches, has nothing to do with video.
If you wanna output to video, you need enough pixels for your video resolution, let me explain.
Dvd is basically 720X480 (NTSC) or 720X576 (Pal) pixels, so...
If you create a character in Photoshop that will be seen only in full height, you only need to export it at a slightly higher resolution then the height of your dvd resolution, say 600 pixel high for Pal.
If you need you character to appear in close ups, then you need to export it at a much higher resolution.
A good bet, to me at least, would be to render you character so that, when assembled in Anime Studio, it has 2000 pixels high, which would allow close-ups of part of the body, like a full head close-up, while retainning good quality.
Now, if you we're to build your characters inside Anime Studio, you would not need to woirry about any of this, since Anime Studio is vector base and resolution independant.
G
First of, dpi are for prints, as in, how many pixels are printed by square inches, has nothing to do with video.
If you wanna output to video, you need enough pixels for your video resolution, let me explain.
Dvd is basically 720X480 (NTSC) or 720X576 (Pal) pixels, so...
If you create a character in Photoshop that will be seen only in full height, you only need to export it at a slightly higher resolution then the height of your dvd resolution, say 600 pixel high for Pal.
If you need you character to appear in close ups, then you need to export it at a much higher resolution.
A good bet, to me at least, would be to render you character so that, when assembled in Anime Studio, it has 2000 pixels high, which would allow close-ups of part of the body, like a full head close-up, while retainning good quality.
Now, if you we're to build your characters inside Anime Studio, you would not need to woirry about any of this, since Anime Studio is vector base and resolution independant.
G
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moviedemon
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Thu May 06, 2010 8:00 pm
GCharb,
Thanks for the reply.
I was already aware of print dpi vs video, etc. - I just mentioned what I had experimented with based on other threads from this forum so that people would know what I had already tried.
Also, early on as an experiment, I tried creating some animations using only the vector tools in AS, however that didn't have any effect whatsoever on the problems I've described.
I've seen some amazing clips from AS where people were using Photoshop PNG files (which is something that AS is supposed to be really good at), without any of the antialiasing/artifacting that I've run into, so I really don't think those PNG files are the source of my problem.
Rather, I think it's probably an output setting or codec issue somewhere in the pipeline...
Thanks for the reply.
I was already aware of print dpi vs video, etc. - I just mentioned what I had experimented with based on other threads from this forum so that people would know what I had already tried.
Also, early on as an experiment, I tried creating some animations using only the vector tools in AS, however that didn't have any effect whatsoever on the problems I've described.
I've seen some amazing clips from AS where people were using Photoshop PNG files (which is something that AS is supposed to be really good at), without any of the antialiasing/artifacting that I've run into, so I really don't think those PNG files are the source of my problem.
Rather, I think it's probably an output setting or codec issue somewhere in the pipeline...
Are you using uncompressed files all the way in your pipeline, like TGA sequences?
If you render in quicktime animation codec, which is fine, just ad a keyframe on each frame, that create a full frame for every frame, which retains full quality.
I suggest you do not use uncompressed avi, they get huge for nothing and slow most system to a crawl, even my big bertha!
G
If you render in quicktime animation codec, which is fine, just ad a keyframe on each frame, that create a full frame for every frame, which retains full quality.
I suggest you do not use uncompressed avi, they get huge for nothing and slow most system to a crawl, even my big bertha!
G
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moviedemon
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Thu May 06, 2010 8:00 pm
GCharb,
I've never tried working with a Targa sequence in Final Cut, so I may give that a shot.
Yeah, definitely no AVIs - as I mentioned in my orig. post, I was outputting from AS to Quicktime MOV files with no compression.
Thanks for the tip!
If anyone else has any input on this, please be sure to post a response.
Thanks!
David
I've never tried working with a Targa sequence in Final Cut, so I may give that a shot.
Yeah, definitely no AVIs - as I mentioned in my orig. post, I was outputting from AS to Quicktime MOV files with no compression.
Thanks for the tip!
If anyone else has any input on this, please be sure to post a response.
Thanks!
David
Thing is that DVD is a pretty crappy format, compared to what I can produce on my Mac. I was always disappointed by the quality of my own animation when I saw it in the DVD Player app on the Mac. I even used DVD Pro to crank up the bitrate as high as possible: still I had lots of artifacts.
Then one day I went over to a friend who recently invested in a good home DVD player and beamer, and he played my DVD. It was amazing! I still could see some artifacts, but the overall impression was much much better than replay on my Mac.
The trick seems to be the interpolation methods modern DVD players use. I recommend you do the same test with your DVD in a good player.
Then one day I went over to a friend who recently invested in a good home DVD player and beamer, and he played my DVD. It was amazing! I still could see some artifacts, but the overall impression was much much better than replay on my Mac.
The trick seems to be the interpolation methods modern DVD players use. I recommend you do the same test with your DVD in a good player.
It took me some time but I finally made some decent looking dvd's. I wrote a guide here, viewtopic.php?t=6900
But there is always something different you have to tweak, depending on the style of the animation that you're wanting on dvd.
For example, an animation with lots of gradient color will do better when encoding to mpeg2 (dvd), then an animation that has flat colors. Something like you would see in flash animation. This is because the bitrate drops when there's not alot of detail, so to speak. If you want better quality, you have to keep that encoding bitrate up. So if your animation has flat vector style look, add some noise to it. Not a lot. Just enough where you can barely see it close up.
Oh, and motion blur helps a lot with moving objects. Makes it look not so aliased (jagged). This is more so for interlaced / older tv's. Progressive tv's look just as good as your pc monitor.
Hope that helps.
But there is always something different you have to tweak, depending on the style of the animation that you're wanting on dvd.
For example, an animation with lots of gradient color will do better when encoding to mpeg2 (dvd), then an animation that has flat colors. Something like you would see in flash animation. This is because the bitrate drops when there's not alot of detail, so to speak. If you want better quality, you have to keep that encoding bitrate up. So if your animation has flat vector style look, add some noise to it. Not a lot. Just enough where you can barely see it close up.
Oh, and motion blur helps a lot with moving objects. Makes it look not so aliased (jagged). This is more so for interlaced / older tv's. Progressive tv's look just as good as your pc monitor.
Hope that helps.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is the option in AS to export "extra smooth images" or something like that. It's in the AS export window with all the check boxes.
Since you are using IMAGES in AS instead of AS vector this might help.
A while back I did several minutes of AS animation that was put on DVD and projected on a HUGE GIGANTIC wall screen at a trade show. I didn't burn the final DVD myself. I only provided the final AS files. I was sent a copy of the DVD. It was apparently done using iMovie or something similar. It was not "professional" mastered or anything like that.
Although I didn't supply final rendered movie files, I did do my own exports at the same resolution and codec for the final, uncompressed QT. Because of the huge file sizes my client decided it would save time if they rendered my files from AS instead of me rendering and having to upload or email the huge files.
From what I saw and heard it looked gorgeous. The DVD I got was beautiful playing on the PC or in a player.
All of my Animation exports looked great as well, perfectly smooth lines. The character in the video was simple, fill and outlines with a bit of gradients inside the shapes. The main character used AS vectors and fills but there were also many still images exported from AI included. I turned on "extra smooth images" for final output but I don't know if that actually made a huge difference.
I have never had issues with aliasing and export from AS and I don't do anything special at all.... except for the notes below...
-------
Alpha Channels
On a recent project using Adobe Premiere and lots of compositing using alpha channels in the AS export (Animation codec, millions+) I found that I had to check the "Do not premultiply alpha channel" in the animation export in AS.
If I did not check that box the edges of the animations from the alpha when imported into Premiere looked HORRIBLE in when exported to the final mp4.
For example the edges around transparent alphas for a character were very very jaggy, as if they were aliased.
That's all I've got for now.
-----------------
Additional notes on bit rate
I recently was schooled in what makes videos look good and the file size. It has very little to do with pixel dimensions. It has to do with the bit rate settings in your video editor when exporting.
For example, 1280 x 720 exported at a bit rate of min: 0.6 max: 0.8 will result in a very small manageble file size, in my case about 4mb. It still looked "ok" but it had lots of artifacting in fast motion areas (dissolves, panning etc).
For the final video I exported with a bit rate of 8 min, 10 max, resulting in a file size of 25-30 mb instead of 3 - 4mb. These looked awesome.
So, that could have a hug impact on the final quality of the playback. You can pump the bit rate up to huge numbers, like 15 - 20, this will result in HUGE files and require A POWERFUL COMPUTER to playback. The bit rate controls how smoothly the video plays on a computer by sacrificing the quality.
-vern
Since you are using IMAGES in AS instead of AS vector this might help.
A while back I did several minutes of AS animation that was put on DVD and projected on a HUGE GIGANTIC wall screen at a trade show. I didn't burn the final DVD myself. I only provided the final AS files. I was sent a copy of the DVD. It was apparently done using iMovie or something similar. It was not "professional" mastered or anything like that.
Although I didn't supply final rendered movie files, I did do my own exports at the same resolution and codec for the final, uncompressed QT. Because of the huge file sizes my client decided it would save time if they rendered my files from AS instead of me rendering and having to upload or email the huge files.
From what I saw and heard it looked gorgeous. The DVD I got was beautiful playing on the PC or in a player.
All of my Animation exports looked great as well, perfectly smooth lines. The character in the video was simple, fill and outlines with a bit of gradients inside the shapes. The main character used AS vectors and fills but there were also many still images exported from AI included. I turned on "extra smooth images" for final output but I don't know if that actually made a huge difference.
I have never had issues with aliasing and export from AS and I don't do anything special at all.... except for the notes below...
-------
Alpha Channels
On a recent project using Adobe Premiere and lots of compositing using alpha channels in the AS export (Animation codec, millions+) I found that I had to check the "Do not premultiply alpha channel" in the animation export in AS.
If I did not check that box the edges of the animations from the alpha when imported into Premiere looked HORRIBLE in when exported to the final mp4.
For example the edges around transparent alphas for a character were very very jaggy, as if they were aliased.
That's all I've got for now.
-----------------
Additional notes on bit rate
I recently was schooled in what makes videos look good and the file size. It has very little to do with pixel dimensions. It has to do with the bit rate settings in your video editor when exporting.
For example, 1280 x 720 exported at a bit rate of min: 0.6 max: 0.8 will result in a very small manageble file size, in my case about 4mb. It still looked "ok" but it had lots of artifacting in fast motion areas (dissolves, panning etc).
For the final video I exported with a bit rate of 8 min, 10 max, resulting in a file size of 25-30 mb instead of 3 - 4mb. These looked awesome.
So, that could have a hug impact on the final quality of the playback. You can pump the bit rate up to huge numbers, like 15 - 20, this will result in HUGE files and require A POWERFUL COMPUTER to playback. The bit rate controls how smoothly the video plays on a computer by sacrificing the quality.
-vern