composition/render setup

[Guest vectorsnob]

Here's a seemingly simple question. What composition/render settings have you found that produce the nicest results for NTSC motion graphics? For instance, do you create your After Effects comp at 23.976fps and render with 3:2 Pulldown?

 

Believe it or not, I'm not a newbie and I'm not asking for the magic "make my work look good" button. I have my specific workflow, I'm just curious to see what others are doing to achieve "their look." Work from those top motion graphics houses (Psyop, MK12, blahblahblah) just have this crisp feel to them, without looking like video. Perhaps they are printing to film? Working at a much higher resolution? Any ideas?

 

I realise this is all relative...And probably a pretty pointless question. But thanks anyway.

[Guest igorschmigor]

Hi Robot!

That's an interesting theory, about working at film setup and then using 3:2 pulldown. All you need to test your theory is try it out. I will try it. I guess it will help bring a little bit of that "movie-shot-for-cinema"-look.

But i doubt, that they really do that. It doesn't really increase quality, the real frame rate is lower, plus some frames will have real bad interlacing.

The only "make-it-look-better-button" i know is motion blur. I love motion blur. But apart from that i have no idea.

Working at a higher resolution might be worth trying too. But the computers at University already run slow with complex AfterEffects scenes, so that will really make work hard for me. MK12 sure work at a much higher resolution than the one i'm viewing them at because i've only seen their work on the web. I mean, the MK12-vids on the net are 280x206 Pixels, that's definately not the resolution they worked at.

 

Timmy, are you going to let us know the secret that makes your work so crispy?

[Guest vectorsnob]

Yes, Tim.

 

So crisp.

 

So smooth.

[Guest jez]

ive worked on some jobs that were animated at 24fps then rendered at 30fps with pulldown... all of the wb's graphics are done that way. they say it gives the graphics a more "filmic" style. mainly its a pain though. if you are incorporating footage that is shot at 24fps it makes sense to have your graphics match. and if you are applying motion blur to a scene animating at 24 fps will definitely give your project a noticably different look than if you did it at 30.

 

everyone has their own thing that they do to give their finished projects the right finished polished look. alot of time that envolves just color correcting the whole thing, and tweaking the overall levels...

[Guest firemind]

Hmmm, can't add any tips, just glad I live in PAL land where doing 24p is relatively easy going from 25fps.

[Guest igorschmigor]

Yeah, pal is my pal. And we got the metric system. That rocks.

[Guest firemind]

Yay for europe

[Guest Sao_Bento]

Aside from trickiness like adding 3:2 pulldown, etc. I'd mention that people tend to forget about the limitations of YUV colorspace. Overcoming those limits is the result of 1) understanding the limits 2) using quality monitoring and test equipment and 3) having built up years of experience working in the medium. I find that color choices and contrast ratios make the biggest difference in what works and what doesn't.

 

My own input is that I never field render unless I'm trying to integrate CG with interlaced footage. Saves time and looks fine.

 

FWIW, I've also heard several people say that they render their 3D stuff at 640X480/24fps. The payoff is a supposedly less "computery" look and slightly faster render times. Before you go experimenting with different frame sizes, make sure you know which codecs use which size macro blocks so you can make sure you're using a size that is the correct multiple for your intermediate codec.

[Guest flowrez]

I agree with Sao, I think it's all about color combinations, contrast, composition and ofcoarse(!) the fine and subtle quality of the animation and editing. It's timing and sensebility... I think it's not about tricks here.

 

flo

[Guest igorschmigor]

nobody was expecting a cheap substitude for good composition or editing.

[Guest Sao_Bento]

>>nobody was expecting a cheap substitude for good composition or editing.<<

 

My point was that a lot of things attributed to a look are simply the result of technical mastery of the medium rather than an intentional effort. For instance, i still hear people talking about how stuff made on a Quantel has a distinct "look" - some quality that you can't put your finger on, but looks really good. That look comes from the superior 8 bit rounding technique that they developed - technical mastery of the medium that was implemented at the hardware level. I suspect the guys at MK12 have a very refined production process which includes making the most of the medium itself. Many of todays newer designers are experienced soley with computers and don't use production monitors or measurement equipment in their workflow, extreme technical mistakes aside, the result is something that looks great on a computer but seems somehow lacking when it's viewed on television.

I am robot made it clear in his first post that he wasn't looking for a push button solution.

[Guest pixel_pimp]

I've heard that it's good to work at 23.976 for film and video. Because outputting film at 23.976 is almost like outputting 24 fps. And rendering interlaced at 29.97 is good for NTSC work. Also from what I've read in "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, by Trish and Chris Meyer" you can get a 20% increase in render time by rendering half the frame and interlaceing.

 

I use to use the old Media 100 cards at work to view video and compress video on my desktop computer to view NTSC and work on the media 100 editing station. But they took those out because we went to FCP. And didn't need the card to render Media 100 compressed movies. Is there a card I could put in my computer to see video on NTSC again.

 

UUUggghh even my own question doesn't make sense to me...stupid flu

 

thanks

[Guest soulmobile]

Having seen mk12, psyop, ecc.'s works only on a computer monitor at less than a half of its original size, I personally see what's goin on only with animation, concept, rhythm, atmosphere, dynamics, ecc... (and that's enough to make me go crazy, by the way).

The true experience would happen looking at their DVD reels! Wow... wish I hade some...

[Guest tother]

If anyone still cares?

 

For film work we of course animate and comp at 24fps.

 

For NTSC output we work at 23.976 because you have less frames to roto and it resembles film much better, afterwords you 3:2 pulldown w/ fields. The big concern for us is the roto, 5 frames less per second - it really adds up

 

Later

[Guest clrk]

I'm a total newbie on this. Could someone explain how you 3:2 pulldown ? And when you work at 23.976, at with frame size do you work ? Wich pixel aspect ratio ? Afterwards do you import your rendered comp and re-render it at a 3:2 ratio with interlaced fields, still at 23.976 ? thanks guys.

[Guest noodles]

clrk

 

here's a link explaining 3:2 pulldown and its side effects.

 

dvdfile.com and here

 

hope it helps

[Guest clrk]

Thanks a lot !

[Guest igorschmigor]

i'm not sure if this is interesting for motion graphics artists but i came across an article that shows how to give your video-footage a movie-look.

follow me, i'm a link to the article

There has also been a discussion at cgtalk:

no, follow me, i'm a better link