Moho Forum

Hello everyone!
I am new to this site and new to Anime Studio, so I thought I would introduce myself before asking questions.

I just purchaced AS as advised by a friend and I am quite impressed.
While looking online to answer some questions I found this site and, I must say, this is an amazing resource and a truly gifted group of people!
I am 40 years old with a lot of art experience, but none of it is in animation.

Here is what I'm trying to do right now:
I'm putting together sort of an online graphic novel. I want to put it online as a movie, but I want the rendered size large enough that I can burn it to DVD also.

So far, I have been drawing the panels as layers in Photoshop and then exporting them into Anime Studio for animation. I'm pretty happy with that so far.

The problem I'm having after that is when I render the clips and piece them together in Premiere or Movie Maker.
I would rather edit them in Premiere because of all the control I have over sound and stereo, but when I render it from there into an MPEG it looks like junk.
I've tried to use Movie Maker and cheat by rendering it multiple times to add sound overdubs, but then it winds up looking chunky too.

Can anyone help me find the proper settings to go from Photoshop, to Anime Studio, to Premier Pro, to YouTube?
Or is there a different way?

Thanks in advance,

Fred

Hiya.

I may be wrong, but one way would be to draw things in Photoshop @ 768 x 576 @ 72 dpi if you're going to be viewing it on a normal 4:3 tv screen, then export layers perhaps using the 'Export layers to Anime Studio' script in the EXTRA FILES folder of AS, or manually export to 24 bit PNG files which AS handles pretty well. Then, set your project settings in AS to 768 x 576, 25 fps for PAL or whatever, I think 24 for NTSC?

Then in Premiere, if you could export @ 720 x 576 for DVD,

and for YouTube: 480 x 360, with H.263 codec @ medium/high settings, with AAC or LINEAR PCM sound settings, 16-bit 41,000 Khz, Little Endian codec

Thanks Mikdog, that is very helpful!
Is there a reason to set Photoshop at 72dpi? Is there a reason not to use a higher dpi?
Also, would you export the AS as an AVI file?

Thank you so much!

72 dpi is screen resolution as far as I know. Print is 300 dpi. I stand to be corrected, but that's what I remember reading.

I wouldn't export with AVI. File sizes seem to be huge with AVI (Audio Video Interlaced)

Instead I use Quicktime, try MPEG 4 or H.264 as a compressor. I once rendered out an ad for TV and because I had to send it through the internetz and I was having trouble uploading big files, I made about a 2MB file with H.264 codec and they could use it for TV! Not ideal, barely acceptable, but the point is that it was a Quicktime file, 720 x 576...hmmm...not sure actually what my point is.

But I'd go with Quicktime as opposed to AVI.

Thanks again Mikdog, that was very helpful.

Hey Finkdaddy,

Here in NTSC land, the square pixel dimensions for output are 720x540 @72 dpi. 72 dpi is the correct resolution for TV. 29.97 FPS, not 24. This is for regular size video (4:3 aspect ratio), not HD (16:9).

If you are uploading to YouTube this stuff isn't as important as if you are going to television, but good guidelines. YouTube also accepts HD resolutions now.

Here's a program that you might find helpful:
http://www.virtualdub.org/
I think this is only for AVI format, but it's very helpful for compressing video for the web. Try saving out of Premiere as an uncompressed AVI, then use this to compress for YouTube.

If using QuickTime, the H264 codec works pretty well. YouTube recommends it. For editing purposes, I use animation codec, because it's lossless compression.

Some good information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio

Thanks SpaceBoy64,

I haven't even tried to test anything on the web yet because I've had trouble finding any combination of codecs that work well enough.

Right now here is what I'm doing and the results are fairly good, but not as good as I would like:

I'm drawing art in Photoshop and exporting the layers as .anme files. Then I'm adding a small amount of animation in AS and rendering the panel as a Quicktime file using the PNG codec. Then I am putting all the panels together in Premiere Pro, adding transitions and sound, and then rendering a final product as a Quicktime file using the H264 codec.

The result is OK, but I do loose some clarity, especially on text. I have to make my text really big or you have trouble reading it.

I really want to use the Photoshop/Anime Studio/Premiere Pro combination. Do you have any suggestions to make my final product any clearer?

Thanks in advance!

To avoid loss of clarity and contrast, I have had some luck using a slight sharpening effect plus a levels effect in After Effects before running the H.264 codec. Each project I have tried this on required its own unique sharpening and levels settings... one size did not fit all, but it was worth doing a few tests.

Sounds interesting. Can I open a Premiere file in After Effects, or do I have to save it first as some other kind of file?

You can only exchange video files between these programs.

Because you want the best results, you need to work with high quality files as long as you are still exchanging files between programs. Only after you rendered your master file, you want to create a compressed video file for distribution.

Try rendering out of Premiere as an uncompressed AVI, then use VirtualDub to compress for YouTube using MPEG.
http://www.virtualdub.org/

Always use an uncompressed, or lossless codec while working on the project. Compress to a web format only after you have a completed animation.

I usually use Quicktime Pro to export as H264 from the uncompressed version. In the filters during the export, I usually add some contrast and darken it up a few notches. H264 tends to lighten and wash things out.

When I use the uncompressed AVI render, I have a choice between a V210 or a UYVY codec. The UYVY wont work at all, and the V210 makes a terrific looking video, but there is no sound. Apparently you need a V210 sound card or something? I would love to make an uncompressed AVI if I could.

The H264 works well, but there is some loss in quality and , as you said, it tends to wash out a lot of color.

I'm not trying to compress anything for the web right now, I'm just trying to find a good way to render out my project before I spend too much more time creating it. I don't want to spend a month or two drawing and animating only to find that everything I've done looks like junk.

Finkdaddy wrote:When I use the uncompressed AVI render, I have a choice between a V210 or a UYVY codec.

That's not something I've ever heard of before. When I choose uncompressed, there is no codec to choose from, it's just uncompressed.

Maybe that PNG codec that you mentioned would work. I usually use animation codec. It's a lossless codec too, but I don't think the AVI format has that option.

Your final delivery method will dictate what format you choose. If you're going to video, don't worry about it right now. Use whatever codec is native to Premiere for outputting video. Record it to a Mini DV tape if you have that capability. Or use a DVD authoring software to create a DVD.

I have had some problems with getting my finished product to the client. I sent them QuickTime movies, but they did not have QuickTime, and Windows Media Player won't play QuickTime. So they had to download and install it. I thought Quicktime was pretty standard, and thought it came with most PCs. I guess it doesn't. The Cable company wants MPEG, but I don't have a good MPEG compressor and I certainly don't want to use H264 for television. I had to re-upload the commercial to them today because they couldn't un-zip zip files.

Problem solved!

There are two different AVI possibilities. One is called uncompressed Microsoft AVI. That's the one I spoke of above. The other is just called Microsoft AVI. It gives you a lot of codec choices, but I just chose NONE and the render looks great!!

Thank you all for the advice and help!