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What are the best settings for working & exporting projects?

Posted: 18 Oct 2015, 16:31
by JQuinn
I'm doing clean up on my first scene done in TVP. I'm making it look as hand drawn as possible and I'm worried the lines that I am using might be a bit light (grey not black) and also slightly soft (i.e. out of focus). I need to see what it will look like when I do a final export. So my question is what are the settings for the best quality export of the projects, so I can export a test? I want it to be the best quality possible as it will end up on cinema screens (I hope).

The project size I am working to is 2880 x 1620 at 25 frames per second. I have been advised to work at 3100 x 1800 which allows area to work outside of the final field area so will for the next scene.

If anybody can advise me about all the best project settings that I should be using that would be great. Thanks.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 18 Oct 2015, 17:15
by slowtiger
The project size seems OK. Just bear in mind that downscaling from this size to 1920x1080 also makes the lines finer, which may be your intention or not.

The "best quality" doesn't exist, there's only a best setting for each purpose. I can export a lossless video file, but my computer might not be able to play it back in realtime. (My new Mac does it, thankfully.)

So I use any lossless codec only for files which go elsewhere, into other software (my editing suite), or to the customer (broadcast station), or to my video service provider (making a DCP).

For just checking animation and timing I export to h.264 which makes small files and will play back in real time. It also makes all images pale, so don't judge your colours from a h.264 video ever!

If you work on a Mac, Apple's ProRes codec is reliable in terms of colour and detail and playback even in original HDTV size.

As for lines not being black enough: I have the same problem right now. What I do is: I duplicate the line layer and adjust the duplicate's opacity to my taste. You also may try to set a line layer to multiply.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 18 Oct 2015, 17:31
by neonnoodle
Generally speaking, TVP's export is very "what you see is what you get." When you are zoomed in to the canvas at 100%, the final film should look no better or worse (i.e., no blurrier or grayer) than that. I use the AVI (internal) at Quality: 100 and Mode: RGBA when I want to render a movie file out of TVP directly. This produces a video with excellent fidelity to the working file for my purposes.

Hope this helps.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 18 Oct 2015, 18:18
by NathanOtano
I've only seen people exporting png sequences (and in full resolution, i only export in 1080 at the end) lossless quality, easy to use for the editing, no quality loss. The avi internal insn't always easy to playback and edit, depending on the software.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 18 Oct 2015, 19:18
by JQuinn
Excellent thanks for all your advice it makes sense! Slowtiger - thanks for the advice about doubling up the layer - I was so wrapped up with trying to get the perfect brush that I forgot to duplicate the levels to make it darker! Stupid really as we've been doing exactly that for years in AfterFx! :roll:

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 19 Oct 2015, 12:12
by ZigOtto
JQuinn wrote: ... I forgot to duplicate the levels to make it darker! ...
just for info, another alternative is to apply an Alpha correction to "harden" the drawing's opacity,
(Keying/Alpha Control or Histogram/Alpha FX)
it's particulary interesting when you want to control the blackness of the line layer along the timeline,
f.i. during a camera zoom-in or out.
line-density-up.png
line-density-up.png (56.3 KiB) Viewed 43501 times

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 19 Oct 2015, 13:01
by JQuinn
Thanks ZigOtto - another interesting TVP fact I've learnt today!

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 18 Jan 2017, 22:55
by Anim-Illustrate
HEllo everybody.

I hope it is the right place to post this question.

I´m working for a client on a project. And my client is on mac and I am on Pc.

Projct size is :2300x1294. 100 frames on ones.

Every time I try to export the 100 frames and do the playback,size 100%, in quicktime player, the line is destroyed.

When I playback the animation ,size 100%, in windows media player I see nothing wrong.

I have attached two pictures.

One showing the export settings and one showing the destroyed line ( only visible in quicktime player)

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Anim.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 19 Jan 2017, 03:48
by D.T. Nethery
Anim-Illustrate wrote: I´m working for a client on a project. And my client is on Mac and I am on PC.

Project size is : 2300 x 1294. 100 frames on ones.

Every time I try to export the 100 frames and do the playback,size 100%, in Quicktime player, the line is destroyed.

When I playback the animation ,size 100%, in Windows Media Player I see nothing wrong.

I have attached two pictures.

One showing the export settings and one showing the destroyed line ( only visible in quicktime player)

Any help is greatly appreciated.
What is your OS (which version of Windows) ? What is your version of TVPaint ? (Help menu > about TVPaint Animation)
SEE: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6167" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 19 Jan 2017, 09:06
by slowtiger
The Quicktime player will not play anything larger than your actual monitor resolution (the old version 5 player could!), so please check if your display can actually handle 2300 x 1294.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 21 Jan 2017, 09:07
by Anim-Illustrate
D.T. Nethery and slowtiger.

Thank you I will check on both of your questions.

Thanks again for taking time to answer me.

Have a great day.

Anim

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 21 Jan 2017, 09:16
by Anim-Illustrate
D.T. Nethery I am on TvPAint Pro version 10.5.7- 64 bits.

I´m waiting to hear from my client regarding his version..


I´ll get back to you

Anim

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 21 Jan 2017, 09:40
by Anim-Illustrate
Ok.

Information:

Clients setup:

(Apple,MAC setup)

Monitor resolution 2560 X 1600.

TvPaint version 9.5 32 & 64 bit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My setup:

(Pc- Intel Core i7-3770 CPU 3.40 Ghz Ram:16 GB

TvPaint pro version 10.5.7- 64 bits

Display: Cintiq 21 UX

Thanks.

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 21 Jan 2017, 10:06
by slowtiger
OK, your screen resolution seems fine, Quicktime should be able to open the file 1:1. Now I wonder which codec you used for the video? The artifacts look like you used something like AVHD or the like, which are totally wrong for animation. Could you render the video with Apple ProRes and look again?

Re: What are the best settings for working & exporting proje

Posted: 21 Jan 2017, 14:01
by Anim-Illustrate
slowtiger .

This is how it look when Exporting the file.

As I recal, I have always used this setting when exporting "stuff" to my clients.

And never had any issues.

Do you have any idea about this?

Thanks.