[zippa]

Sorry to ask this question again but I never quite got there...
rather than rendering out an entire animation as an AVI which takes days, only to find out if I have a little glitch I have to re-render the whole thing all over again, I want to render frames and then piece them together later.

my problem is that the quality is not nearly as good when I piece the frames togehter afterwards.

I am using a program called 'Image to AVI' using the MPEG 4 compressor which I always use. the thing is if I use no compressor, the 'full frames (no compressor)' option, the final AVI file is huge, and if I use the MPEG I get the right size but I lose quality.

anyone rendering via frames vs the entire animation file and if so, what technique do you use so that when you piece them together you end up with the same same quality and file size as if you rendered out the avi file right in Lightwave?
Maybe it just isn't possible???

thanks in advance.


Paul

[TowerFan]

Render from LW to an Image Sequence. It's an option in the Render Options Panel. Since the animation is saved as individual image files you can re-render single frames if needed to fix oddities.

The down side is you need a professional video editor to create the final animation. Most inexpensive video editor programs don't import image sequences. The two I have used that do are Premiere and Avid. It's been a while since I've looked at low-end editors though, some might do it now.

[zippa]

Thanks for the reply and info.

Yeah, I managed to render out the individual frames okay but when i piece them togehter with 'Image to AVI' or even Jasc's Animation Shop i don't get the same quality video, though it works okay in reading in the photos and piecing them together.

I will try Premiere. I can't help but think it's the way I use the compressor, meaning maybe I need to have LW write out non-compressed images (which get very large) and then when I piece them together I use the compressor to reduce the size. or, I write out the images from LW using my typical MPEG compressor and don't compress again when I piece them together. It seems I have tried both techniques but don't to get the same results as when I simply write out to a video file. I need to run through the tests again to be sure.

And your point exactly, I want to do individual images so as to 'splice' out bugs and patch in new pieces, all without having to recrunch the whole video.

thanks again.

Paul

[Warlock 279]

You're right that your problem is the way your compressing stuff. You only want to compress anything once if at all possible, compressing it twice leads to artifacts and a general mess. Also compressing something twice won't make a difference [noticeably so] in the final video file size. So if you're rendering out compressed jpegs for your image sequence then compressing those again for video, its not likely to turn out as well as it could, even if you're using some highend app like AE, Vegas, Avid, or whatever. It won't make a different what program you use if you're still compressing a cpl times. Typically you want to take the highest quality images you can take as far as you can take them in the process, i.e. keeping uncompressed images up until the very final render if possible, but this isn't always possible in the home/hobbyist enviroment.

Personally when I render anything that isn't just a test or will take mroe than a cpl hours, I render it to frames. Usually I use 32 bit PNG files. They give you a nice image quality, without taking up endless amounts of space, and since its 32 bit, its got an embedded alpha. Tho if you don't need the alpha for compositing then you can just render as a 24 bit PNG. My image size for animations is 800x450 usually, and rendered out as 32 bit PNG's don't exceed 500k. Usually they're in the 300k range per image, which isn't bad at all.

Additionally, unless you're gonna be adding sound, you can compile your images in LW itself, no need to mess with Premiere or anything. Load up a blank scene, and in your image editor, you just load an image like you normally would, select the first image of your rendered sequence. On the source tab you'll notice it says "Image type" and there's a dropdown next to it. Select "image sequence" from the drop down. Press "ctrl + F7" to bring up your compositing options and set your image sequence as the background image. Change your camera settings to the correct size [w/e you rendered out the image sequence at]. Set up your saving options like you would if you were rendering out your animation b4, compression/MPEG options, and what not. Press F10 and you're off, should string that image seqeunce together in not times, ticks them off at like a frame every tenth of a second or something. Make sure you have "frame end beep" disabled tho...or you're in for a real treat.

Lastly there are freeware alternatives for adding sound/compiling animations. Jahshaka is supposed to be really nice, tho I've not used it. Umm., sorry..I think I just rambled for a bit here, hopefully it helps some tho.

[zippa]

Thank you very much! that was very informative, I appreciate all your input and I'm sure it will help me greatly

thanks again,
Paul