#3ds to video
25 messages in this thread
It seems to me that the only options for transfering animations to video that I
can afford are s-vhs (Panasonic AG7750 – $5000) and hi-8 (Sony 9650 – $4200).
But what do I need in addition to the deck?
I called a video dealer to get a price on the Panasonic deck today and asked if
there are any other decks that are comparable. He said that the 7750 was the
only thing in s-vhs that could do what I wanted. He said that if I wanted to
go Hi-8, I could get the Sony for quite a bit less and it includes a time code
generator and does not need a VTR controller. Apparently, 3ds controls the
deck itself.
I guess I need a frame buffer. That would be a Targa 16 or Targa 64. The
frame buffer converts the VGA image to composite video, right?
Do I need a time code generator?
On the surface, it appears that the Hi-8 system is the way to go.
Any response will be greatly appreciated.
tjl
It seems that people are talking to you only about single frame animation, that
is getting your animation out to video tape one frame at a time. This is by far
the method that yields the best results, however it does require a sizable
investment in equipment. At the minimum you will need: a frame buffer, a frame
controller, and a video deck capable of recording one frame of video at a time.
The decks that you mentioned are the low end of decks with that capability, and
you can see that they start around 4 to 5 thousand.
A lower end alternative to this method is using a VGA to NTSC converter. This
is a board or box that attaches to your VGA card and anything that you play on
your computers monitor can be recorded onto video. The up sides to this method
are that it is much less expensive to set up, and relatively easy to do. Also,
since you are playing the animation in "real time" off your hard disk, instaead
of one frame a time, you can use any VCR that you want. The down side is that
the quality suffers. First, you are playing off of your hard disk, so any time
the computer pauses to read from the disk, your animation will show a pause on
the video tape. Also the computer probably will be running at a frame rate of
about 12 to 15 frames per second, so the animation wont be as smooth as the
single frame recorded version. Second, you are limited to only 256 colors in
the animations that you create.
Don't be discouraged about these limitations though. Many people are very happy
with the outpot of the VGA to NTSC converters. Be careful of cheap products
though! The one that I have had nothing but success with is the VGA Producer
Pro from Magni. Magni is a company that makes video test equipment so you know
that their board is up to the standards needed.
Write back if you want more information about transferring to video either
straight from the computer or one frame at a time.
Hi Brian: Sorry to jump in like this, but after reading your note to Timothy
Lyvers I am encouraged to write to you… Most comments in this forum really
push hard for the high end VTR and a single frame controller hooked up to the
computer, your suggestion to look into a less expensive solution interests me
since I'm looking for an inexpensive solution to my project: animate
architectural drawings so that a walkthru can be recorded onto a VTR. I'm not
able to go the singleframe controller routine (too much $) so I'm aiming for
the .flc file on the hard disk to be played thru animator pro towards my
TARGA+16/32. Using an RCA plug I input into my VTR and the result isnt as good
as if I was frame by frame but to start me off it's not too bad..You are
correct that thru the HD on a system ( mines a 486-50 EISA) playback isnt 30
frames per sec.. A 900 frame animation rendered to a .flc file (53mg) took
about 2 min to playback..If had been frame by frame would have been 30 sec..It
was done at 512 x 486 to match the TMODE #9 on my TARGA. I'm new at this and
still learning the basics but if you have any other suggestions E-Mail me the
details since I dont always check all the messages in this forum (budget is
tight). regards, Bob Smith
Robert,
for complex architectural animations I often create an exact quarter-sized
animation (256x243x1.266 aspect ratio for TMODE 11 or 320x240x1.0 for TMODE ?
640x480x16bit rez) and put a bezeled border around it in animator pro so I
don't have an embarrasing black area around the flic. I usually put some text
on the border area to explain the project, give credits etc. This keeps the
file size down and can often be loaded in RAM for 30fps playback, near enough.
I've had 600 frame animations be around 20mb or so and I have 32mb RAM.
Hi Martin, I can understand that doing the animation at 256×243 or even 320×240
can for one thing save a lot of time on the rendering of 600 or 900 or more
frames, but I assume you also end up loosing a tremendous amount of sharpness
in the image.. Doesn't it look like a low resolution game or something ? or am
I missing something here? My futur clients won't like something that isnt sharp
and shows well what the inside of their futur house will be .. Secondly, the
test file I'm using is the office drawing in the 3DS tutorials, since I havent
mastered by any means all the commands of 3DS and an actual 3 D drawing I have
of a proposed house is just too complicated for me yet.. I'm trying to
understand which configuration will be the "perfect" one that combines
smooooooth travelling thru a walkthru (with none of that jagged look to it when
you turn a corner).. so..I did that tutorial with 900 frames but at a
resolution of 512×480, the
flc ended up 53 mgs…Now I have 16 mgs of RAM & a HD w/670mgs..So I could
create really large .flc files if need be to make all the travelling within the
walkthru very smooth, and as you'll see from a note I'm sending to Kevin Krell,
I tried out higher resolution on the TARGA with positive results.. I you or
anyone else reading this has more suggestions I check in to this forum once in
a while so leave here or on my E-mail that info.. P.S: how do you put your
bezelled border and those credits around your flic? Regards, Bob Smith
Bob,
When I render a quarter screen animation and put a border around it the
resolution is the same but there is less of the screen being used or moving.
For example, my flic is still 640×480 but only 320×240 of it is being used for
the animation therefore the sharpness is still good but the picture is smaller.
I place a bezeled border and text around the flic in animator pro using the
flic composite features – very powerful. My flics were so detailed that there's
no way that a full 640×480 resolution flic would play smoothly because almost
every pixel is changing every frame plus the file size would be in the 80-110mb
region. Apparently the new Diamond Viper VLB on a vesa local bus motherboard is
very good at flic playback but you'd also need a seperate encoder to change the
svga signal to ntsc composite or s-video and probably a very fast hard drive.
I've heard about a special system with extremely fast flic playback called the
Dell DGX which sounds like it is the fastest for this purpose – it would have
to be pretty important to you to buy a specialized system for this purpose,
though.
Martin, I'm going to be spending the weekend trying to figure out your
suggestions: Meanwhile, maybe you can explain how you do what you said in this
paragraph: "When I render a quarter screen animation and put a border around it
the resolution is the same but there is less of the screen being used or
moving. For example, my flic is stilll 640×480 but only 320×240 of it is being
used for the animation therefore the sharpness is still good but the picture is
smaller…" Sorry if I'm slow on the uptake but if you rendered a .FLC at
640×480 where does the 320×240 come into it? If I render say a 100 frame flic
in the Keyframer, I choose in the Menu: Render, configure then type in 640×480
(or as I have been doing 512×480) then I click in the User window and the
frames start to render one after the other till all ready… what's next, I
dont understand:"But only 320×240 of it is being used…" Now I did upgrade
recently my aniPro to 1.3 but haven't played with the Composite or even the
Show itt features.. Finally, following your mention of Dell, DGX phoned Dell
and was expecting them to fax me the details around 7 pm tonight but no go yet
so will only get them next week.. If you want them I can E-Mail them to you..
thanks again..
Robert,
if you are in a 640×480 renderer configuration (rcpadi or rcpvesa drivers set
at 640×480) and you change your configuration (renderer/setup/configure) to
320x240x1.0 that will be the size of the animation **BUT** you can load this
animation into animator pro when anipro is in 640×480 resolution and you will
see a quarter screen-sized animation in the middle of the screen. If you want
to add a bezeled border around the black area surrounding the quarter screen
animation then do the following: reset anipro to 640×480 and fill the screen
with the border colour of your choice then make a black box of about 320×240
wherever you would like the animation to appear. You can use the emboss ink to
create the bezel effect around the edges of your black box. The black box is
now the "hole" in which you will composite your flic underneath. Make the
border flic the same number of frames as your architectural flic and then
choose flic/composite/underlay and load the arhcitectural flic. You can click
and drag it and place it in the black hole area, then click again and start the
composition (using incoming colours, probably). You should then have a full
640×480 flic with only a quarter of it being used for the actual action.
If this makes no sense then I highly recommend you do the anipro tuturials (at
the very least do 1,2 and 3) to get a handle on this composition business which
I find very easy since I use it frequently.
Good luck with the project and let me know what you do.
Hi Martin, thanks for that info, will now lock myself off CIS for a day or so
and do some homework… the suggestions are very good, and will try them out,
must admit had gone thru the tutorials of AniPro rather quickly about 4 months
ago, and since I bought 3DS had not completed them..(bad boy). (too busy
learning about 3DS and figured would go back to "AniPro" after mastering
3DS!..How naive I was since now I realize that AniPro requires (as far as I am
concerned) regular practicing or you start forgetting the real basics..Now
since I'm not up and running yet for contracts, I have catching up to do..
Again thanks and will advise next week how it went..
Glad I could help. I recently redid the anipro tutorials because it had been a
long time since I first did them + I had a project which required extensive
knowledge of the package and that was simply the best way.
Good luck.
Robert,
resolution and the number of colors go hand in hand. There is a player (The F16
Animation Player by Rainbow technologies) which "chains" together sequential
TGA for a flic with 15 or 16 bit color (32,000/64,000 colors). Since there is
no palette used in TGA these colors can change from one frame to the next. A
320×200 F16-flic with 32,000 colors looks tremendously sharper compared to any
FLC. The F16-flics are larger than FLCs but the quality is absolutely superb.
— tobias
Robert,
On any thing higher than a Targa+ 16 (16/32 or 64), your animations will
play faster if you're in a resolution above 512×486 (typically 640×480, or
756×486). This is due to the architecture of the Targa+.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Hi Kevin, first off, thanks for the info both to you and Martin Foster(see
other message in thread if my software did this properly).. Secondly, since as
I have to admit I'm new at this and trying to untangle myself from all the
books, wires, notes and messages I download from this forum here goes the
"classic" beginner question: since my TARGA board says: Targa +16/32 I assume
that's why two of my options: tmode 3(512×400 32 bits and tmode 11( 512×486 32
bits) say 32 bits..(Oh dad you got me the right present this
year…..<g>..Anyway on a serious note, following your note I tried my
Office.flc file from the tutorial(it's 53 mgs when rendered at 512×486) played
back thru TARGA board at :
1: tmode9(512×486 16 bit) = 102sec
2: tmode17(640×480 16 bit) = 87sec
3: tmode25(756×486 16 bit) = 68sec this is all going thru animator
Pro towards the TV, and at the higher resolution, any of those wall corners or
other objects that tend to give a slide effect, tend to be less noticeable..But
of course if res of .flc file and TArga card dont match you get a slight change
in the perspective.. Now for the BIG question… why is it that when I want to
playback those
flc files rendered with 3DS(all the tutorial ones like the copter, or the
birdwalk etc… When I'm choosing the driver to run Animator pro on the TV
SEt,be it for 512 x 480, 640×480 or 756×486, the main menu of Anipro is mostly
off screen.. example..TOP menu with : ANI FLIC PIC CEL TRACE SWAP
POCO ( ARE OFF SCREEN) and if I click on lets say: ANI, the pull down menu is
off screen to the left, and the word BROWSE is reduced to E… Ok once you get
the hang of it you feel around for the words, but isnt there an easier way? Any
suggestions will keep me from pulling out the last of my hair..<g> Regards, Bob
Smith
Bob,
Regarding your disappearing menus: Your monitor isn't adjusted properly
for the Targa+. If you can manually resize the image (height & width) on the
monitor, do so. The Targa+ is intended for video production, and at least in
the 512×486 & 756×486 modes uses the video overscan area (material which may
appear under the bezel on many TVs). Video (NTSC) monitors usually have an
underscan switch. Some RGB monitors do also.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Hi Kevin, Thanks for the suggestion, however my monitor is a Sony 27" TV and
resizing the image is not feasible…So I guess I'm stuck..I hoped for a
solution at the level of the VVESA.COM file or some other such idea, I had even
tried different resolutions with the TARGA card but as I got higher resolutions
I say less and less of the menus..One of the problems of using a TV set for the
monitoring of the NTSC output..No overscan and no underscan..
Robert,
a TV is almost always described as overscan (or overscanning). This is sort of
the default with TV's.
I would really like to have the capability to render true color at higher
resolutions. But in some cases, this may not be necessary.
About how much is the Magni board?
Are there resolution limitations?
thanx alot.
tjl
I am pretty much ignorant in this process (output to video) and found your
detailed explanation to Timothy Lyvers clear and most enlightening–thanks!
I have, of course, seen the results of the high-end single frame set ups (TV),
but am wondering where/how I might get a look at the results of the VGA to NTSC
converters you describe.
Magni Corporation goes through a distribution channel. Many multi media dealers
have acces to the boards through distributers and they don't even know it. Or,
if you have no luck, write me back and I'll see if I can find someone in your
area.
I just bought the RocTec Video Card from Tiger Software (1-800-888-4437) It is
high color (65,536 colors) up to 800×600 and up to 1024×768-256. It has S-VHS
output(to RS-170 spec) and Video Genlock input overlay. Cost is $399.00 It has
an external fader (between Video in and VGA) slider control ($99.00). I have
been using various VGA-to-NTSC converters (cheap ones for two years with good
results). When 3DS2 renders a still it shows the results in high color. So I do
all my action shots in 256 colors and put all my pauses in hi-color. I do all
my output in real time from RAM (16Megs) or from a 10ms 1.2Gbyte drive ($3000)
and a 8 Meg smart disk cashe($2000). I can render 5 to 10 seconds in real time
without a disk seek glitch. I just hook these segments together to make the
final video. By putting my money in Disk and cashe I get a fast developing
system too. Buck
Sounds like a great system. It's has always been my experience that you only
really need the colors and resolution on the pauses or stills, you can get away
with almost anyhing when the image is in motion.
Do you go to an editing studio to mix the two together, or just do it on the
fly as you record the images?
Timothy,
Your dealer got a few things screwy. First, best way to run the
Panasonic AG7750 is through a serial animation controller such as the Diaquest
DQ422+. This requires that the Panasonic be outfitted with the optional time
code card.
The Hi-8 deck (say the SONY EVO-9650) is a good choice – you might want the
optional encoder. 3D Studio does not control this directly, although no
hardware is needed. You CAN use the Diaquest board, or Diaquest produces a
software-only controller (DQ-232 – for $995).
I suggest you purchase either the Targa+ 16/32 or Targa+ 64, for use in more
colors. You can also play 256 color VGA animations directly on the Targa+
(without single-frame control) through an Animator Pro driver.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
I've located a local video service that can transfer my .tga files to video at
what I consider to be a reasonable price. So, the luxury of owning my very own
animation deck seems less important. Although, its not completely out of
question. (especially after gobs of money starts rolling in)
Can I produce the .tga files without a frame buffer?
If so, how do I view the images in true color at higher resolutions?
What is the time code generator for exactly?
Thanx for the rapid response.
tjl
Timothy,
You don't need a frame buffer to create .TGA files for use by a service
bureau. You can also display 24-bit files on a 24-bit VGA card. The typical
resolution used with a Targa+, though, is 512×486, with a non-square aspect
ratio. Viewing these files then at 640×480 on a VGA will provide a
distorted/stretched image. I feel its bes to preview on the Targa.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Kevin,
Thanks alot. I had in mind to get one of the better graphics cards like the
ATI or similar. At least I could see what the colors would look like.
Have you heard anything about the Diamond Viper VLB with a Weitek graphics
chip? (PC Mag March 30)
tjl