Movie making with Maya !?!?!?!?

[Matty2Phatty]

Your problem is not with your rendered frames, but with the way you're encoding them.

WMV is never, ever used for your final copy. Perhaps if you want low filesize versions on the net at low resolution, but NEVER use it for a high quality print.

Maya is not at fault here, your encoder is.

[Snowjeti]

That sounds good, because encoding in another format can be done easily.
Maybe you can tell what I should encode it to in your opinion.
It would be great if you could give me a link to some tutorials or something similar.

[Snowjeti]

I tried about 10 formats from Intel Indeo to WMV9 HD 1080...in every case I get similar results but I never get a video that looks really smooth like all the other 3D Videos I've seen do. ;-/

Do I have to use motion blur or should it look smoothely even without any kind of blur ?
Please help....

[Matty2Phatty]

Just a dumb question... are you sure that when you input each frame it is definitely only playing for one frame? What program are you using to encode?

[Snowjeti]

There are no dumb questions. ^^

I am using After Effects to encode. I do import file--->Image sequence---> 25 Fps for footage and composition ----> choosing wmv or intel indeo etc..----> add job to renderlist--->render

I don't know if each frame is playing for one frame but if I set up the render like that, it should be the case.

[shadow]

Because Adobe is a company in a NTSC country, all the products are optimised for NTSC right out of the box. And it isn't just the settings in the Composition Window.

1. Go to File > Project Settings and set your timecodebase to 25 fps.
2. Go to the Preferences and go to the Import tab and set your Sequence Footage at 25 Frames per second.
3. Import your image sequences and make sure everyhing is set for 25fps. If not, change it with 'rightMouseButton' on the footage > Interpret Footage.
4. Create 25 fps compositions.

Matty2Phatty is absolutely right in saying that you never want your final version to be at WMV or something. My rule of thumb is: what compression is used to get it in, is the minimum compression you use for your final version. In this case it's uncompressed. So use AVI or Quicktime and set the compression at None or uncompressed.

The big advantage of an uncompressed final version is that you can transcode it to everything wih no extra loss of information during transcoding. When I'm encoding to MPEG-II for DVD or encode a version for the web, I always use Variable Bit Rate (VBR) instead of Constant Bit Rate (CBR). Always use the best settings possible for the project and if that involves doing a second pass, do it. Never compromise quality over speed unless you have a solid reason to do so.

As for archiving: DVD-R's cost next to nothing (a lot of dutch people actually import them from germany :)) So archive the Uncompressed version. It takes a while, so if you want a faster way to export your GigaBytes of data: buy a Hard Disk, copy the files unplug the drive and put it in its' protective plastics again. Treat that Hard Disk like you would with mastertapes etc.

[Snowjeti]

Thanks a lot for your help!.. I think it has something to do with the 25fps problematic like you said. If I render uncompressed avi files out of maya I can watch them very smooth and without jerking. Now I just have to find the best settings for encoding in another video format. I can't use the uncompressed avi files as final because of their resolution (2138x750). Most PCs can't play uncompressed avi's in a resolution that high. I also have to use CBR instead of VBR because of hardware acceleration. If u use VBR the video can't be played hardware accelerated, like my chef told me. ;-)

Maybe u can recommend me a codec I should use?

[Matty2Phatty]

Sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. (i've always hated that saying)

You can't always ask for professional quality product on consumer hardware.

[scrimski]

I ask myself how Pixar etc.. get high quality movies out of maya.
They don't encode, they print to film.

Do not encode in AfterEffects, use Tmpgenc(it's free but encodes into mpeg 2 for only 4 weeks, after that you have to purchase the full version) or similiar.

Mpeg 2 would be my choice too. Use a VBR with 4 MBit/s as a basic bitrate and 8 Mbit/s for the peak, optimzed settings for movement or whatever it's called in the encoder.
Do a test encoding of about 30 seconds with a lot of motion in it, if the result fits your needs, encode the whole stuff, if not tweak the bitrate settings til satisfied.

Actually I don't think a beamer can handle 2K*750 px(maybe I'm wrong, if so, ignore the following) so scale it down to a PAL width which is either 768 for square pixels or 720 for non-square pixels.

[shadow]

I can't use the uncompressed avi files as final because of their resolution (2138x750). Most PCs can't play uncompressed avi's in a resolution that high.
Actually it isn't the PC that can't play it, it's the Hard Disk. That's why they invented RAID arrays. Still I would suggest using the uncompressed version, but maybe use proxy files for editing. And indeed, with that resolution printing back to film is the only thing you could do without compromising the quality. Next best thing is HDCAM-SR.

Actually I don't think a beamer can handle 2K*750 px(maybe I'm wrong, if so, ignore the following) so scale it down to a PAL width which is either 768 for square pixels or 720 for non-square pixels.
Well I don't know if it still qualifies as a 'beamer' but some digital projectors can do 2K (I believe some even can do 4K), but this is expensive stuff. As for the PAL resolutions, the 768x576 square is for 4:3 images only, for 16:9 you want to render 1024x576.

[Snowjeti]

Thanks again for your interest in my problem but I still haven't had success.

I think I can say the problem lies in the codec settings I use, or codec itself.
Maybe you can tell me what codec I shoul use best. Additional information about rendersettings of the codec would be very great, too. ;-)
I want to have a 2000x750 x25 FPS smooth Video. Everything else isn't that important to me. ;-) My sourcefiles are sequences of tga or jpg files.
This time I also got a little preview of the video as an attachment to this reply. Please help. ;-)`

By the way, we are using 2 beamer for one Video, so that one beamer projects one half of the Video with a resolution of 1000x750. ;-)

[scrimski]

Do you have any informations about the beamer you use? Which maximum bandwith, which videosignals/format? What player do you use (DVD, CD, hard disk)?

[Snowjeti]

The problem has nothing to do with the beamers because the videos are jerking, too if I watch them on my personal PC or on any other PC. The file format is WMV9. The videos are played from harddisk.

[gametech]

how about rendering everything at 50 frames per sec? this will give you smooth motion. Or it is your computer that can not handle the playback.

25 per second never looks smooth compared to 50 fps, not even with the right motion blur.

succes!

[Snowjeti]

ok I could do this but then I would have to render out twice the number of frames I have to render now. And this takes very long because it is a complex scene in Maya.

I found one reason that made the video jerky but it is not the main reason.
Adobe After Effects does frame doublings if I render out in 25 fps. And so one frame is shown twice in a row instead of once.
But I don't know how I can change this. Maybe someone of you knows another Video/Frame converter where I can input image sequences and output WMV HD Advanced Profile in good quality?? ;-)


By the way: Is it possible to create 1080P HD videos that don't jerk without having a Radeon X1600 card ? I even saw WMV HD Videos on Cebit at Nvidia booth which were jerky, too.

[tareq3d]

i need help am rendering fro only PC useing A motion graphic
tryed MPEG but the finalk render looks like have jaged edges (anway its look like have lose of qualitey)

i need to know how i can render for PC and have best qualitey
and i want to know if the screen resluation have a effects on it
i will be greatfull
waiting on fire

[RiKToR]

Jerky playback is because your computer cant handle the HD resolution, you can try one of quicktime's new HD res codecs but I still think it's drive speed issue. Just an FYI, Quicktime recommends a dual core PC for its 1080p as well as large amount of RAM.

[earlyworm]

I'll have to agree with Mr Riktor on this one, it sounds like your computer just can't handle a resolution of 2138x750.

CPU, RAM and HDD and all important to playing back HD content at realtime frame rates.

One question though: why the funny frame size? 2138x750 isn't a common image format for film, HD or SD. I thought for a moment it could be a safety overscan for HD/Film 2.35 - but you don't have the vertical resolution to do that.

Why don't you render/encode it out at something like 1980x1080 (HD) or even smaller HD720P/SD16:9?

[dtoxxx]

Make sure that you are using progressive scan for the output.

I had problems converting an image sequence to a video file in Final Cut because when I exported the raw DV stream to an image sequence, it split the interlaced fields into seperate frames altogether.

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