Dear Forum,

I am relatively new to this field so I would like to settle this once and for all.
I read in another forum that the best way to create an animation is to render it frame-by-frame and then later put together the sequence in a video software. Is this the best way to form an animation? Or something else? Right now I create an image sequence and then use Final Cut Pro on my Mac to sew it together. I am not fully satisfied, some of the videos look like they are skipping frames. This of course can be because of the movie production of Final Cut Pro.

Your help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Balazs

That is indeed the best way. What format are you using for the the rendered sequence?

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

If you are skipping frames, that’s a FC problem. If Max has rendered all of the frame correctly, that’s not the problem.
Did you set up and render the animation at the same frame rate you use in FC?

that was always the process for compositing. but if it doesnt have to be composited, there isnt really a need. and you can also give video an alpha in the video editor now. frame by frame is a tried and true process but not something you have to do at this point

The advantages to rendering to an image sequence are many. But I have written them here just too many times now.

For all of you who were nice to answer I would also like to attach the aformentioned animation. It is on Youtube. down below is the link. Check it out, let me know what you think the problem might be.

	Video

Rule 1. NEVER render to a lossy format like jpeg. You’re losing image quality immediately before you do any thing else, followed by another loss of quality when you convert to an AVI. Use a lossless image format (png, tga) at every stage up until the final conversion.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

If the final format is to upload to Youtube, converting to AVI won’t help. Youtube will convert your uploads to it’s own format whatever you upload, unless (I think) you upload in exactly the right format for Youtube. Not sure what they use now, either Flash, H.264 or Mpeg2.
The rule is the maintain the very best quality and minimal compression at every stage, avoiding lossy compression wherever possible. Every time the image is compressed the quality is degraded. Compressing an already compressed image just makes things even worse. So rendering to a sequence, avoid Jpeg, it defeats the object, use lossless formats like PNG, TGA or TIF. When converting to video for upload, compression may be unavoidable because the filesize of an uncompressed AVI may be impractical to upload. So stick to good codecs with as higher bitrate that is still practical to upload. I use either H.264 or Mpeg2 (BluRay standard) for Youtube uploads, the files are large and take a while to upload, but it helps maintain reasonable quality. Youtube help pages have some quidelines for optimim upload formats.
For some reason your Youtube video is not displaying in my browser, so I can’t see what’s happening with your frames.

If you are going to FCP, and you are skipping frames, your sequence settings are wrong.

This is how I go to FCP from 3ds Max....this will work all the time, no skipped frames.

1) Render 3ds max animation as targa sequence, 32 bit with alpha, alpha split on. Pre-multiplied alpha on as well.

You will end up with two streams of targas- one called &#xna;me.tga where &#xna;me is your name in the
render dialogue, and %a_name, which is the alpha stream.

2) Open up Quicktime Pro on your PPC or Mac Pro.
3) Import Image Sequence- load &#xna;me.tga- Save as proRes 422
4) Import Image Sequence- load %a_name.tga- Save as proRes 422

5)Open up a new sequence set to resolution you need, Apple ProRes.
6) Create a new bin, and load &#xna;me.mov and %a_name.mov
7) Put the alpha layer, underneath the clor layer, set colr layer to travel matte alpha.
8) You can now key seelmlessly over video, donn’t foget to render

What are your sequence settings, did you render the timleine?

Balazsdoc 12 January 2012 10:15 AM

Dear Forum,

I am not fully satisfied, some of the videos look like they are skipping frames. This of course can be because of the movie production of Final Cut Pro.



Thanks,

Balazs

Balazsdoc 12 January 2012 10:15 AM

Dear Forum,

I am relatively new to this field so I would like to settle this once and for all.
I read in another forum that the best way to create an animation is to render it frame-by-frame and then later put together the sequence in a video software.

At a minimum. For cinimatics, rendering if often broken up into numerous plates. Background, forground, visual effects, individual characters...sometimes even further broken down into per-light pass or diffuse/specular passes.

Afterwards, it’s all put back together through compositing and a final output is made. This method gives you the most flexilibity in comp and allows you do do things like fix one small part of a shot, re-render it in isolation, and just recomposit. Rim light proved to be too strong or the wrong hue? You can easily adjust something like that in comp. Smoke too dense? Too much shine on something, need to make a change to an animation? It can all be adjusted seperately and re-renderd much more quickly than just rendering a whole scene at once.

Obviously, there’s a tradeoff. Takes longer to render initially and you’re going to spend more time compositing everything together.

But even if you’re going to render straight to a sequence, it’s better to render to a lossless image format and then compile into a video. That way you can easily change the format or compression settings without having to re-render everything from scratch. You can even do this in Max natively using Video Post.

Rendering straight to video is fine for previews or playblasts, but final beauty renders should be done to sequential image files.

Christopher L. Bruce - Senior Animation - Cryptic Studios
3DSMax 2009 (SP1) 32-bit/64-bit - Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Intel Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @2.83GHz - 8.00GB RAM - GeForce 9800 GT (1GB)