Serious render quality problem

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:09 pm

I have to say that Rhoel sample is not so extreme.
See this comparison:

Original AS logo (128x128) png image

Same image after imported into a 128x128 AS project and rendered without anti aliasing settings (to try to avoid the blurred effect)

Let's see a close up (600%)
ORIGINAL

AFTER AS

I agree with Rhoel. There is a render problem with images. It gets blurred not matter how you tune the settings.

And although Mike's AS 3D abilities explanations are admissible it doesn't justify that loose of sharpness for static images.

-G

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:10 pm

The400th wrote: Animation Master than a Blender

Didn't even know Animation Master still existed! I bought a copy for the Welsh studio some years back and was appalled to find the program only ran from the CD. We never ordered another: The whole AM deal felt unprofessional/amateurish. To my knowledge, the CD was binned.

Blender has been adopted in China in a big way - I learned of a series studio with 150 animators all working with Blender; the studio had its own programmers working both on scripting and on the source code to customize it for their needs. Some of their work was a bit 'gamey' but they are catching up fast.

OpenOffice and Linux seem to be struggling along okay under the open source principle.

Rhoel

Post by **Lost Marble** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:48 pm

I've been looking into this some more, and while I don't think it's feasible to have perfect sampling, I can definitely produce sharper results. And I think that's the real issue, right? The point (I hope) is not to produce a perfect one-pixel wide horizontal line, but an image that looks as sharp as the original.

Would that be a satisfactory approach?

As far as the pixel mis-alignment around the edges, that appears to be a problem with positioning the image in 3D space. That needs to be fixed, but the workaround for now would be to create your background image slightly larger than your Anime Studio project, or scale it up/reposition it ever so slightly.

-Mike

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:37 pm

Lost Marble wrote: I can definitely produce sharper results. And I think that's the real issue, right?

Most definitely. Thanks for the prompt feedback.

Rhoel

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:52 pm

Gente's example with the logo is very convincing. I would say a sharper render would be a great thing.

In my testing I did notice a lot less blurring when I changed the canvas size by one pixel in one direction as opposed to what the project settings are in the AS file. It still blurred but only vertically which reduced the effect.

-----

On a side note regarding AM. I have been using that program for more than 10 years and I love it as much as AS. I don't often say I "love" an application... but I truly have warm romantic feelings towards Anime Studio and Animation Master. I buy them flowers and candy on valentines day.

(They eliminated the CD copy protection and have gone with a web subscription.)

I'm not biased... really really... just because they gave me my own section on the AM forum doesn't imply I'm biased... at all... really.

-vern

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:43 am

heyvern wrote:([Animation Master] eliminated the CD copy protection and have gone with a web subscription.)

I think it goes to show how careful manufacturers have to be. Companies can be very fickle and bounce something on a single dislike. That particular studio was looking to break into 3D as an alternative to the claymation they did. They bought AM because it was a cheap foot-on-the-ladder but found the package 'not for them', the principle reason was the CD - rightly, they said CD's only have a limited shelf-life, especially if they are used daily. (the operators hated it as they couldn't plat their own music). They also looked at MAX, MAYA, and Cinema4D which I admit I liked).

In the end, they went with Maya because of the professional back-up and ran it for several years. My leaning was towards Max because of the number of available freelance users.

They do not have any CGI now, back with the clay again.

Rhoel

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:29 am

Rhoel wrote:OpenOffice and Linux seem to be struggling along okay under the open source principle.

Oh, yes, I forgot. I'd rather AS be MS Office than OpenOffice, and OSX than Linux.

Hmmm, Rhoel, with your suggestion that AS go open source, is it coincidence that we had that GPL troll in the Discussion forum recently? I've never seen you two in the same room together...

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:39 pm

The400th wrote:Hmmm, Rhoel ... troll? I've never seen you two in the same room together...

Even rhymes Rhoel and troll, soemthing I had never realised - a new career awaits

Unfortunately, unless Troll is posting from Cambodia, Thailand or the Philippines, then not guilty.

But it's fair comment the Suits have delayed things, where as OS tends to have faster update cycles - just the nature of the beast: Delays are clearly outside of Mike's hands and it must be just as frustrating for him too.

Rhoel

Post by **Lost Marble** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:57 pm

Does anyone in this thread use a Mac? In the recent Mac bug fix, I also added some code to try sharpening image layers a bit. I'd appreciate some feedback on whether you think this improves the appearance of rendered image layers. (Sorry, this is just a test at this point - available for Mac only.)

Anime Studio:
http://www.lostmarble.com/downloads/AS_ ... bugfix.zip

Anime Studio Pro:
http://www.lostmarble.com/downloads/ASP ... bugfix.zip

-Mike

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:35 pm

I rendered with all boxes disabled (no anti-aliasing).

Original icon

Rendered in Anime Studio Pro 5.6 (bug fixed Mac version)

Original 600 %

Rendered 600 %

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 8:43 pm

I don't have a properly calibrated monitor, nor a perfect eyesight but I don't see the difference between what Genete rendered in Anime Studio, and what I rendered.

I must note that there is a marked difference between how Firefox renders the images and how Safari renders the images. So for honest comparison, please download the images to your computer, and don't judge in your web browsers, but rather in your (calibrated) image editor.

The reason is, of course, that Safari is the only web browser that uses calibration.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:07 pm

Lost Marble wrote:Does anyone in this thread use a Mac? In the recent Mac bug fix, I also added some code to try sharpening image layers a bit. I'd appreciate some feedback on whether you think this improves the appearance of rendered image layers. (Sorry, this is just a test at this point - available for Mac only.)

Anime Studio:
http://www.lostmarble.com/downloads/AS_ ... bugfix.zip

Anime Studio Pro:
http://www.lostmarble.com/downloads/ASP ... bugfix.zip

-Mike

Well, there is still a bit of blurring, but not a great deal. I only see it because I know it's there.

What's the bug-fix?

Post by **Lost Marble** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 6:49 am

Manu wrote:What's the bug-fix?

Sorry, from a different thread:

viewtopic.php?t=10914&start=15

Crashing during export on Mac. That's what the bug fix is for, but I threw in a little sharpening as a test.

-Mike

DominiqueBray · Post by **DominiqueBray** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:16 pm

Sorry to dig up this old topic, but.... Is this problem suposed to be fixed ?.. I am using the PC AS 6.1 and still have this blur problem.

I never noticed it because I quite never used pictures in AS, but now I decided to paint my backgrounds in Corel Painter, I find them really blurry in AS...

I read about the ratio story, so I tried with a project and pictures which have a 1.45 ratio instead of the 1280x720 ratio. But no change.

The only way I found to get a not-too-blurry rendering, is to paint them 3 times bigger than the AS projet... And 3 times bigger than HD is annoying !

edit :

I know some 3d softwares (like e-on Vue) can produce better quality renderings of 2d textures than AS does, using this trick : they make pictures 4 times bigger before resampling them to use in 3d world.

To try, I took a picture, made it 4 times bigger in Photoshop (with no smoothing resampling, so each pixel just become 4 pixels), and compared the rederings in AS of this x4 pic (scalled at 0.25) and the original pic, of course in the same AS project. The result is faaar better with the x4 one. So, ok we could do this trick ourself, but it would be annoying to make it all the time for each and every pic we want to put in AS....
Try yourself to see what I mean.
Ok it eats huge memory, but AS should have this as an option for those of us who really want a sharper quality of their pictures instead of fastest rendering time.

By the way, I though "extra smooth picture" was this, but I see really not difference using it or not.
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DominiqueBray · Post by **DominiqueBray** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 7:06 pm

Here are pictures to show you :

a part of the image I'll use ( a screenshot of AS5.6 ^^ )

the same part of the picture, but after I imported it in AS6.1 and rendered :

quite horrible...

and here is what I get with the x4 picture scalled at 0.25 :

faaar better !

Maybe the difference won't be as obvious on your screen as it is on mine.

by the way, I used png to save them, so there is no jpg blur.
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