Hi. Been working on my short and saving stuff as avi. Now I want to put a few together to test. I tried using the trial version of Adobe Premiere but my system apparently is to weak -kept running out of memory and having to restart. I tried Wax but for some reason portions of the source video went 'missing' -as if it dropped several frames towards the end of each clip, even when I didn't overlap or add transitions. I next downlaoded the trial of Vegas but one of the avi doesn't play right -even though it plays right if viewed in any other player ....
I was thinking maybe I can just composite the stuff in AS, but have no experience -and little experience compositing in general. I brought in 5 avi clips and placed them all in a switch layer. In the interest of saving time I'm hoping someone can give me some hints as I have wasted hours messing with formats, trying to figure out how to get stuff to playback at 12fps (seems most are 29.97 or higher or finding the custom settings is buried).
Can anyone give a basic blow by blow of how to now play these is a row, and then how to do a simple fade from one to the other? Should be easy enough but I've been hammering this for several days, all day, and with my short term memory problems and ADD my brain is now toast. Going to take a short movie break.
If I can do this I may also be able to use AS for some particle effects which would be cool.
Compositing Video in AS
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Compositing Video in AS
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Well,
It's important to ask a couple of things first:
Why are you planning to output to video? (for the web, mastering to tape...)
Why did you set your keyframe rate at 12fps? (video standards are 25 FPS for PAL and 29.97 for NTSC, 29.97 means that NTSC will drop a frame at given time lapses -don't remember- during playback)
One solution/workaround for Wax is to output your scenes from AS as image sequences, and then import the images into Wax. Bear in mind you have to set your preferences in Wax according to your preferences in AS.
Best Regards,
Israel RN
It's important to ask a couple of things first:
Why are you planning to output to video? (for the web, mastering to tape...)
Why did you set your keyframe rate at 12fps? (video standards are 25 FPS for PAL and 29.97 for NTSC, 29.97 means that NTSC will drop a frame at given time lapses -don't remember- during playback)
One solution/workaround for Wax is to output your scenes from AS as image sequences, and then import the images into Wax. Bear in mind you have to set your preferences in Wax according to your preferences in AS.
Best Regards,
Israel RN
Originally we were working in Flash and started with 12fps. Instead of starting a new project this semester I decided to try to improve the old one and am reusing a lot of it.
Hmm.... I eventually want this to go on a demo reel -guess a CD or DVD. Do I have to redo the project at 29.97 fps for better compatability or what? I'll probably have to redo a lot of the animation if I do or it will zoom by I guess, still rather start now than 2 day before it is due if that is the case.
Any help/advice appreciated.
Hmm.... I eventually want this to go on a demo reel -guess a CD or DVD. Do I have to redo the project at 29.97 fps for better compatability or what? I'll probably have to redo a lot of the animation if I do or it will zoom by I guess, still rather start now than 2 day before it is due if that is the case.
Any help/advice appreciated.
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Suggestions
Well, i'm pretty new to ASP so i'm not sure how a 29.97 framerate would work. i think you should work at 30fps for NTSC and 25 for PAL, or at least 24fps for film like animation, as far as i read in the Manual, you shouldn't find hard to change the speed of your animation by moving all your keyframes.
If you've done some animation already at 12fps, then change the fps to 24, so your time adjustments are simple, and then let your video editing software do the conversion to either NTSC or PAL.
My suggestion is, that if there's a posibility of you outputting to DVD or other broadcast formats, better to start working at NTSC or PAL standard specs from the start, if you are working with vector animation, size wouldn't be a problem, you could easily resize your animation, if you are planning to output to film and you're using bitmaps, better to stay at HDV specs minimum (i've heard that 1080i is nice for 35mm tranfer).
Any way you go, better to edit all of your scenes with Premiere, Vegas, Final Cut, or similar systems.
Best Regards,
Israel RN
If you've done some animation already at 12fps, then change the fps to 24, so your time adjustments are simple, and then let your video editing software do the conversion to either NTSC or PAL.
My suggestion is, that if there's a posibility of you outputting to DVD or other broadcast formats, better to start working at NTSC or PAL standard specs from the start, if you are working with vector animation, size wouldn't be a problem, you could easily resize your animation, if you are planning to output to film and you're using bitmaps, better to stay at HDV specs minimum (i've heard that 1080i is nice for 35mm tranfer).
Any way you go, better to edit all of your scenes with Premiere, Vegas, Final Cut, or similar systems.
Best Regards,
Israel RN
I use AS all the time to do what I consider to be... sort of... video compositing. Hybrid kind of thing, video inside AS animations.
In my case all the video is the exact same format as the output for the AS files; QT, 30fps, no compression... I think of it as an "image sequence with handles".
You lose the sound in the imported video unfortunately. It would be nice if the output from a video on a layer in AS kept its audio.
A cool thing I found is that the video won't "start" in AS if the layer is "invisible". The video layer doesn't start playing in AS until its visibility is turned on. This is very handy. I don't know if this works with switch layers but that would be cool too if it did.
What I do is very simple; In some cases I have two videos previously rendered from AS. I need them to cross dissolve or cross fade.
I set the visibility AND OPACITY of the first video layer to true and 100%... and the second to false and opacity to 0%. At the point of the transition I add in a key frame on opacity for both layers for each end of the transition... 15 to 20 frames... depends on the timing.
I then set the opacity to the first video from 100% to 0% on the transition and the second video to 0% - 100%. Turning the video to VISIBLE at the beginning of the transition (so it won't start till it gets to that point).
At the end of the transition I turn the visibility of the FIRST video to OFF. This will save on render times since AS will render the video even if you can't see it. It must be OFF to prevent it from adding to the render times.
Sounds harder than it is.
I also have a template of sorts to start with... two group folders with the transition keys (opacity/visibility) already set up. I just add in the two different videos in each folder. This is really great since you can duplicate the folders as much as needed and move the keys around.
-vern
In my case all the video is the exact same format as the output for the AS files; QT, 30fps, no compression... I think of it as an "image sequence with handles".
You lose the sound in the imported video unfortunately. It would be nice if the output from a video on a layer in AS kept its audio.
A cool thing I found is that the video won't "start" in AS if the layer is "invisible". The video layer doesn't start playing in AS until its visibility is turned on. This is very handy. I don't know if this works with switch layers but that would be cool too if it did.
What I do is very simple; In some cases I have two videos previously rendered from AS. I need them to cross dissolve or cross fade.
I set the visibility AND OPACITY of the first video layer to true and 100%... and the second to false and opacity to 0%. At the point of the transition I add in a key frame on opacity for both layers for each end of the transition... 15 to 20 frames... depends on the timing.
I then set the opacity to the first video from 100% to 0% on the transition and the second video to 0% - 100%. Turning the video to VISIBLE at the beginning of the transition (so it won't start till it gets to that point).
At the end of the transition I turn the visibility of the FIRST video to OFF. This will save on render times since AS will render the video even if you can't see it. It must be OFF to prevent it from adding to the render times.
Sounds harder than it is.
I also have a template of sorts to start with... two group folders with the transition keys (opacity/visibility) already set up. I just add in the two different videos in each folder. This is really great since you can duplicate the folders as much as needed and move the keys around.
-vern
Nope, you're fine. Just open your animation in VirtualDub and select the following...bupaje wrote:Do I have to redo the project at 29.97 fps for better compatability or what?
"Video, Frame Rate..., Convert to fps:,"
Enter in the field "29.97". Now save your animation, preferably in a lossless format, such as the lagarith codec.
Some animators actually do animate in a lower frame rate and switch it when completed. So don't sweat it, you're fine. But, animating in a higher frame rate does give a better feeling of true motion.
Great news - thanks. I'll look it up now. I found a Frame Extender component at Cold Hard Flash which can be used to automatically add frames to bump the 12 to 24 but would still have to go into each timeline to do it.
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Video Editing
I do think that AS is suitable to do many sorts of things with video, however, i'm pretty sure that it can't produce broadcast quality results, better to do all the video editing and compositing in a proper software that is meant to do that.I use AS all the time to do what I consider to be... sort of... video compositing. Hybrid kind of thing, video inside AS animations.
That's not hard to accomplish, but again, better to do that in a video editing software, why? because video editing is not trivial to your final work of art, frequently you change your mind and need to change your edits, cut here, cut there, add and remove fades, etc.I set the visibility AND OPACITY of the first video layer to true and 100%... and the second to false and opacity to 0%. At the point of the transition I add in a key frame on opacity for both layers for each end of the transition... 15 to 20 frames... depends on the timing.
I then set the opacity to the first video from 100% to 0% on the transition and the second video to 0% - 100%. Turning the video to VISIBLE at the beginning of the transition (so it won't start till it gets to that point).
At the end of the transition I turn the visibility of the FIRST video to OFF. This will save on render times since AS will render the video even if you can't see it. It must be OFF to prevent it from adding to the render times.
Sounds harder than it is.
I'm new to animation, but i'm sure that even the most planned animation suffer this sort of editing time last minute decisions... better to have the versatility of a Video Editing software.
Mmm, i don't know what version of Moho/AS you're using, but in my version i found a 'Rescale Keyframes..' item under the Animation menu, there you can check an option Rescale the entire document... no need for extra software...I found a Frame Extender component at Cold Hard Flash which can be used to automatically add frames to bump the 12 to 24 but would still have to go into each timeline to do it.
Better to use no rare codecs at all, or you will spend more time when coding and muxing your DVD.Now save your animation, preferably in a lossless format, such as the lagarith codec
Best Regards,
Israel RN
@Israel RN - thanks. Can use the rescale within AS as this is animated in Flash but your point about using a proper compositing package is well taken. I do have access at school and will take all the individual movie clips and put it together there.
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Hmm...
I have to disagree with the concept of a "proper" video editing tool... in regards to quality anyway.
I use AS to do SOME of my compositing, not for final product. I have to use something else to make a DVD or VHS. Even if I output to DV format from AS. AS is just one tool in the box for me.
The output from AS is as good as... as anything else I use and it is actually easier and quicker to do some of the more complex compositing than the video tools. Try doing a tracking matte on a video inset with a video editing tool that you may or may not use every day. I know AS so it is just easier for me.
I never had any problems with it as far as out put quality. When you speak of "broadcast quality"... are you talking PAL? NTSC? Hi-Def? I have not done Hi-Def because I don't have the equipment to pull that off but NTSC to DVD looks like broadcast quality to me.
I understand there are issues with images/video layers and camera or layer tracking which I have not encountered yet but I haven't run into any deal breakers so far.
-vern
I have to disagree with the concept of a "proper" video editing tool... in regards to quality anyway.
I use AS to do SOME of my compositing, not for final product. I have to use something else to make a DVD or VHS. Even if I output to DV format from AS. AS is just one tool in the box for me.
The output from AS is as good as... as anything else I use and it is actually easier and quicker to do some of the more complex compositing than the video tools. Try doing a tracking matte on a video inset with a video editing tool that you may or may not use every day. I know AS so it is just easier for me.
I never had any problems with it as far as out put quality. When you speak of "broadcast quality"... are you talking PAL? NTSC? Hi-Def? I have not done Hi-Def because I don't have the equipment to pull that off but NTSC to DVD looks like broadcast quality to me.
I understand there are issues with images/video layers and camera or layer tracking which I have not encountered yet but I haven't run into any deal breakers so far.
-vern
How do you do Tracking mattes on video with AS?Try doing a tracking matte on a video inset with a video editing tool that you may or may not use every day
I'm not quite sure, i'm new to AS Pro so i have not made any real world test to see, while AS generates great quality output from what i've seen (that's why i spent 200 bucks buying AS Pro anyway) i can't tell, how this would translate to broadcast quality, i'm not talking only of NTSC & PAL framerates and dimensions but all of the broadcast specs (which are not trivial to follow even with high quality editing systems & equipment).I have to disagree with the concept of a "proper" video editing tool... in regards to quality anyway.
Sure AS Pro is terrific in animation, and sure it can make compositions with video, but again, i can't tell if it can match compositing systems like shake or AE, maybe it can produce great compositions with top quality output, but i'm pretty sure it still will require some tweaking/mastering with other programs.
Again, i'm making assumptions, i won't be able to make a statement until i do some real tests.
I guess some people here has some experience with this, would be interesting to hear about this.
What kind of compositing tasks are you referring to? and what video tools are you comparing AS with?it is actually easier and quicker to do some of the more complex compositing than the video tools.
What is required for "broadcast quality"?
AS is used for content creation. It is ALREADY used for commercials and television work. Beyond that what else is needed? If I use a low end video production tool I would be limited as far as the out put size or codec whatever. AS has no limitations in that regard. If I import AS renders into a NL video editing tool... the final out put for me is to DV. But I could also output to the same format as the original AS out put... which... looks exactly the same anyway.
What exactly is "broadcast quality" and what specifically does AS "do" to the output that makes it not... broadcast quality? It seems to me it all depends on the CODEC not the content creation tool.
-----------------------------
In a specific compositing task:
I needed one rendered AS "shot" to appear masked inside a television type screen over the shoulder of a TV announcer character. The announcer is AS, the video in the screen is a prerendered animation of another AS project file.
As the announcer speaks the video image zooms to fill the screen and then shows the remainder of that particular scene at full screen.
I dropped the prerendered animation into a group folder in AS, add a mask for the screen boundaries, than I am free to scale the group up to fill the screen.
In some cases I had two or even 3 separate shots to transition inside the video screen behind the announcer. Importing the actual AS files into that was over kill. I just import the prerendered footage.
I had started to do this in "post" with video editing tools but it took longer... and was harder to do. I am not as familiar with my video tools as I am with AS. When I did a test of the process the AS final renders were as good as doing it in a "better" video editor... and faster.
-vern
AS is used for content creation. It is ALREADY used for commercials and television work. Beyond that what else is needed? If I use a low end video production tool I would be limited as far as the out put size or codec whatever. AS has no limitations in that regard. If I import AS renders into a NL video editing tool... the final out put for me is to DV. But I could also output to the same format as the original AS out put... which... looks exactly the same anyway.
What exactly is "broadcast quality" and what specifically does AS "do" to the output that makes it not... broadcast quality? It seems to me it all depends on the CODEC not the content creation tool.
-----------------------------
In a specific compositing task:
I needed one rendered AS "shot" to appear masked inside a television type screen over the shoulder of a TV announcer character. The announcer is AS, the video in the screen is a prerendered animation of another AS project file.
As the announcer speaks the video image zooms to fill the screen and then shows the remainder of that particular scene at full screen.
I dropped the prerendered animation into a group folder in AS, add a mask for the screen boundaries, than I am free to scale the group up to fill the screen.
In some cases I had two or even 3 separate shots to transition inside the video screen behind the announcer. Importing the actual AS files into that was over kill. I just import the prerendered footage.
I had started to do this in "post" with video editing tools but it took longer... and was harder to do. I am not as familiar with my video tools as I am with AS. When I did a test of the process the AS final renders were as good as doing it in a "better" video editor... and faster.
-vern
heyvern, i think you're misunderstanding what i say, i'm not telling AS is bad, i think AS is one of the best animation systems available, if not why woud i spend 200 bucks to get the Pro version?
You're talking about low end video tools, you can't get broadcast quality on low end video editing systems either. When i talk about Broadcast quality i'm mainly talking of Color management, 'broadcast safe' colors, interlacing, cross conversion to other specs. I've read here that AS does not generates interlaced video...
You say you find hard to composite things with video tools because you are not as familiar, well, some people using FCP i know has been amazed of some of the video composition results i get using nothing but FCP itself, why? because they only know a couple of the full range of possibilities available in FCP (only to mention what i use, i'm not telling FCP is the best video editing out there).
You've no idea of how much different enconding systems and processes affect final image quality nor how many settings you can adjust and tweak in order to get a DVD nicely done.
One student i had sent a documentary he shot to a TV program here, he shot at HDV, edited in HDV, when he built his DVD version with iDVD he lost a lot of the color information of the picture, when the TV crew took his DVD and converted it to Betacam the quality loss was HUGE: the material shot with a 5,000USD + camera looked like it was shot with a cheap 200 bucks camera.
That's why i suggest to make your final edits with a good editing system, if that means you will only add the soundtrack, that's ok, it depends of your workflow.
Regards,
Israel RN
Exactly, what i mean is that i guess that AS output can't be directly ported to a professional scenario. I think the BEST solution for professional workflows is to generate a master for every format you need, and make sure the master quality keeps the original quality of AS output. The quality loss comes when the original material needs to be ported to x medium and this is very important if you work in a professional area, or want to submit your work of art to festivals & contests, you must make sure it will always look great.AS is used for content creation. It is ALREADY used for commercials and television work. Beyond that what else is needed? If I use a low end video production tool I would be limited as far as the out put size or codec
whatever.
You're talking about low end video tools, you can't get broadcast quality on low end video editing systems either. When i talk about Broadcast quality i'm mainly talking of Color management, 'broadcast safe' colors, interlacing, cross conversion to other specs. I've read here that AS does not generates interlaced video...
You say you find hard to composite things with video tools because you are not as familiar, well, some people using FCP i know has been amazed of some of the video composition results i get using nothing but FCP itself, why? because they only know a couple of the full range of possibilities available in FCP (only to mention what i use, i'm not telling FCP is the best video editing out there).
You've no idea of how much different enconding systems and processes affect final image quality nor how many settings you can adjust and tweak in order to get a DVD nicely done.
One student i had sent a documentary he shot to a TV program here, he shot at HDV, edited in HDV, when he built his DVD version with iDVD he lost a lot of the color information of the picture, when the TV crew took his DVD and converted it to Betacam the quality loss was HUGE: the material shot with a 5,000USD + camera looked like it was shot with a cheap 200 bucks camera.
That's why i suggest to make your final edits with a good editing system, if that means you will only add the soundtrack, that's ok, it depends of your workflow.
Regards,
Israel RN
Thanks for the info.
So... if I render uncompressed QT NTSC format from AS, then use iMovie and iDVD to create my DVD and it looks beautiful, all my colors look great, image quality is just what I expected...
... is that not broadcast quality? That output would need additional tweaking for color?
I also export the same iMovie files to smaller "web versions" for client review.
Obviously if I needed to go to "film" resolution... that is another subject entirely. I am aware of color management/image quality for film being a huge nightmare. I won't be in that position for a while unless I am very lucky.
p.s. I only use iMove to "stitch" together the AS rendered shots and to put in DVD chapters for scene reviews. Nothing else. Sound is already in the rendered movie files. It is so simple to slap out DVDs using iMovie and iDVD, at this point I don't need FCP... although I want it... I need a new computer to even think about using it.
I understood what was being said about AS. I just didn't understand why AS out put was not high enough quality for broadcast video. Obviously the majority of any content goes through some other video editing program.
In my case I don't do doing anything else except pump it out to DVD.
-vern
So... if I render uncompressed QT NTSC format from AS, then use iMovie and iDVD to create my DVD and it looks beautiful, all my colors look great, image quality is just what I expected...
... is that not broadcast quality? That output would need additional tweaking for color?
I also export the same iMovie files to smaller "web versions" for client review.
Obviously if I needed to go to "film" resolution... that is another subject entirely. I am aware of color management/image quality for film being a huge nightmare. I won't be in that position for a while unless I am very lucky.
p.s. I only use iMove to "stitch" together the AS rendered shots and to put in DVD chapters for scene reviews. Nothing else. Sound is already in the rendered movie files. It is so simple to slap out DVDs using iMovie and iDVD, at this point I don't need FCP... although I want it... I need a new computer to even think about using it.
I understood what was being said about AS. I just didn't understand why AS out put was not high enough quality for broadcast video. Obviously the majority of any content goes through some other video editing program.
In my case I don't do doing anything else except pump it out to DVD.
-vern