#Video Post 1st experienc
15 messages in this thread
Dear all,
Just wanted to share an experience I had with the new Video Post module in
3dsr2 which has left me very impressed and eager to try more tricks. I am
just completing a 30 second fully animated commercial for local cable (wish
it was national<g>). The final scene called for the logo to fly in front of
the animated background (some dancing characters) and then the background
to fade to black leaving the logo in the top third of the screen and the
rest black (for the billboard which will be done in post-production).
Originally, I was using the animated background which was a looping
sequence of targa files, then a 2d square with the VARY.sxp material
assigned as an animated opacity map to give the fadeout (it becomes more
opaque to completely block out the background), and then in the foreground
was the logo keyframed scene. This was working fine except it was taking
7-8 mins per frame to render on my 486/33 weitek system at 512x486x24 bit
phong high – not too bad. I decided to jump in with both feet and try Video
Post for the same scene and after some reading of the reference manual
(great job, Jack) I reworked the scene with 3 composite layers in the
queue: the looping sequence of targas, a black targa file using the TRANS
fadein option over 45 frames, and finally the keyframe scene. Now get this
ladies and gentlemen: THIS SCENE WAS RENDERING IN 45 to 55 SECONDS!!!!!
Bloody brilliant! 'Nuff said.
Martin, it's GREAT to hear that someone finally figured out how to tap the
power of Video Post.
Congratulations!
– G
Why thank you Garag Jost, lost prince of the Mark Ting empire. I still feel
I have only just scratched the surface of video post's capabilities. I can
certainly see how it might save me money on post production special
effects, like DVE moves. It can also avoid the necessity of having to find
someone with ABC roll (rare in smaller post houses) because you can capture
the live video with a diaquest and composite you logo over the live video
with alpha channel. All done on 1 PC with only 1 VTR necessary, instead of
4 + the ABC roll switcher. Wow, what a concept! When this gets out Garag,
Grass Valley et al are going to be looking for someone to lynch!
I think I need to lay down, these concepts are pretty overpowering…
Wait till you start playing around with travelling mattes and custom
transitions painted in AA Pro. That stuff is really wild and allows you to
create effects that were previously only possible with a Quantel Harry.
– G
PS: Watch out for the evil Baron D'Kmon!
Thanks Martin.
– J
We are having similar revelations. I think the net effect is that we will
organize our work differently. It's very easy to archive "alpha-ed" TGA
files and when compressed they are very small. For our own promotional
work (though I think the same can be said for on-going client work) we look
to incrementally improving the quality of animated sequences merely by
improving each video post component.
Does make me think that mondo disk space is in order.
I agree Noah. The downside of the fabulous new Video Post module, although
very minor and greatly offset by potential savings and capabilities, is
that disk space will probably need to be increased since we'll be storing
many more .tga sequences than before. Fortunately, I've gone the SCSI
controller route so I can add new hard disks very simply, if the occasion
demands. A rewriteable mag-op drive would be nice but not yet possible for
me. I do have visions now of being able to buy 1 betacam sp deck and do
almost everything (and more) that a post house can do with their entire
editting suite! What a revolutionary thought…
Martin-
We have betacam SP here and have been getting excellent product. Of
course, setting up a sequence frame by frame is gimpy compared to being in
a sophisticated editing suite.
One mitigation to the file storage problem is that we are tending to think
in terms of overlays more than before, so component sequences that have
largely transparent backgrounds are relatively compact.
BTW, have you found a good way to combine VP files? Say I have SET1.VP and
SET2.VP, and I want to combine them? I don't think there is a way to do
this without screwing with the files.
–Noah
Good question. I don't know about merging vp files. I'll have a go but I
doubt it's supported. Maybe Gary of Jack could answer that?
We never designed a way to merge two .VP files together. hmmm… This is
the first time anyone brought it up! (put it on your wishlist 🙂
– G
Gary-
Too bad VP files aren't just ASCII. I tried just concatenating a pair
which left a legal VP file, but the second file's data didn't load in video
post. I guess you have a value at the top of the file that lists the
number of entries that could be changed w/ debug?
–Noah
I've completely forgotten _what_ is in there. I'll try to remember to ask
Tom about it.
– G
No biggy. If it's important I'll look at it myself.
What happened to the 3DS\VPOST directory? It seems kind of strange to have
everything else so organized and yet no default directory for VP, other
than \3DS…
How about Texture map proxies for 3DSr3 mapping? I tend to spend a lot of
time going through the cycle of:
1. Apply Mapping
2. Render Scene
3. Wait for image to render
4. Goto step 1 until map looks "right".
It would be great to "see" a sample of the map as you apply coordinates
to the object.
In the Modify\Objects\Attributes dialog box, it would be nice to see the
names of the materials assigned to the object. Now if you want to find the
material assigned to an object you have to use the Surface\Materials\Aquire
and/or \Show commands.
Also, an animation starts to render to disk, could 3DS make a few quick
calculations to verify the sufficent disk space exist for the animation?
Many times I've had animations crash-land after running 15 or more hours
because of insufficient disk space. Hey, I thought 14 Megs was enough for
150 frames…
In the rendering dialog box, I love the Time of Last Frame reading, but
why not calculate a quick estimated time of completion for us.
Why try to reserve the Left and Right arrow keys for "Non-Mouse" (keyboard)
people. I would much rather have 3DS compatible with AniPro and use those
keys for frame movement. I seriously doubt that anyone using a $3,000
software package cannot afford a mouse at $12.00.
Also, for the Release 3 "City" image, set the Far Camera Range a little
closer so the buildings at the edge of the city do not look like
they are sitting on the edge of eternity. Still, great job, whoever did it!
Display List support for 3DS
One last thought, I finally found a GOOD use for the Dongle. It is the best
excuse in the world to use on your friends begging you for a copy of 3DS.
It sure beats the old "Well, you'll need 800 Megs of RAM and 4 Weitek
MathCoprocessors, and a 486-60 to run it, sorry."
Thanks! -MM
Good point!
Evan