CompuServe Thread

#Field rendering

11 messages in this thread
#114925From: WIM LAMOTTEJul 28, 1994 8:42 AM
Hi, I am rendering a long animation with field rendering, in the default field order of 1. Some parts of the animation are calculated in reverse order (e.g. from 100 to 1, by -1), just to let computers work "towards each other". It now turns out that for the sequences that are reversed, the field order is reversed too, which yields of course terrible animation (because the fields are appearing in the wrong order, the movements become very jerky). Is this a known bug or was it meant to be this way (which I doubt very much) ? In each case, since I don't have time left to recalculate, I now have to solve this problem by shifting up each wrong frame with 1 line, such that the even and odd lines fall in the right field, but this gives a visible shift at the "border frame" between the normal sequence and the reversed sequence. Does anyone have comments on this matter ? CU, Wim Lamotte
#114974From: M. G. BATCHELORJul 28, 1994 11:02 AM
What was the logic of having the slave machine(s) render "towards" the master. I don't get it. Are you using R3 ? BILL
#115104From: WIM LAMOTTEJul 29, 1994 5:23 AM
Bill, I am using two machines simultaneously but seperately (no network). The one is a lot faster than the other (Pentium 60 – 32 MB vs. 486-50 – 16 MB). Therefore, I let them render towards each other. Wim
#114988From: Brian Rudolph [Adesk]Jul 28, 1994 11:30 AM
WIM, Are you using command line rendering? -Brian
#115105From: WIM LAMOTTEJul 29, 1994 5:23 AM
Brian, See my response to Bill's reply. But just the fact that a reversely calculated animation uses a different field order seems rather strange to me. Wim
#115453From: Aug 1, 1994 1:55 AM
Wim: Actually, if you think about it, rendering backwards _should_ have the fields reversed, as you've noticed! 3DS assumes that you will lay the frames off to tape backwards, and renders the fields appropriately. Greg (he's baaaaack!) Pyros
#115468From: WIM LAMOTTEAug 1, 1994 6:04 AM
Greg, I'm not sure if that's true : I actually recorded the animation to video and the part that was rendered in reverse order, appeared jerky, because of the wrong field order. This is because e.g. at frame 1, fields 1 and 1.5 are rendered, but because of the inverse field order, they are put to screen in the order 1.5 – 1, giving that the animation constantly jumps back and forth. The field order should be exactly the same when rendering both ways. If I understand it all correctly, the field order only determines which field (even or odd) will be displayed first and this is perhaps different for PAL and NTSC. Another reason I can come up with for reversing the field order is that one maybe can render immediately to video in field mode, in reverse order. In this case, it is only natural that first field 1.5 is renderer and recorded and then frame 1. But the fields should _still_ be recorded on the right half of the frame (even or odd). So I guess there has been a mixup between reversing the field _order_ and reversing the field _position_. Wim
#115516From: Aug 1, 1994 12:07 PM
Wim: >> So I guess there has been a mixup between reversing the field _order_ and >> reversing the field _position_. I don't know what the difference between the two would be! <g> If you are rendering forwards, what you should get on each frame would be 1+1.5, 2+2.5, etc. If you are rendering backwards, what you would want would be the same fields on each frame, but in the order 2.5+2, and 1.5+1, reversed from the previous order. This would allow you to record the frames backwards without any jitter. Make any sense? <g> Greg Pyros
#115321From: MARTIN G FOSTERJul 30, 1994 6:34 PM
Wim, I'm aware of this issue, but it's not really a bug. It's been that way since r2 – it's just the way it is. Anyway, for the least work, I'd just rerender the reversed portion of the frames. But, I've figured out a fix which may be too late, but I'll let you know anyway. You'd use video post to reverse the field order by using a alpha matte of alternating, 1 pixel high, horizontal black/white lines (easy to create in animator pro). If you had a 486 line .tga file create 243 pure white (rgb 255,255,255) lines interlaced with 243 black lines (rgb 0,0,0). If using PAL it would be 576 lines (288 white/288 black). For example: wwwwwwwww bbbbbbbbb wwwwwwwww bbbbbbbbb where w=white, b=black and the lines extend the full width (756,720,512 etc, whatever your .tga file width is). Save the file as filter.gif, or similar. In video post you'd have 2 entries using .ifl file lists of the offending frames. The first 1 would need an offset of Y=-1; the second entry would need Y=1. The first entry's alpha column would be RGB Mask (use filter.gif), Intensity ON, Blur edges OFF, negative OFF; the second would be the same with negative ON (to work on the other set of lines). Render and save the files under another name. I haven't tested this theory, but it should work, and would be much quicker than re-rendering a heavy-duty sequence the normal way. >> but this gives a visible shift at the "border frame" between the normal sequence and the reversed sequence. << This shouldn't happen if the above method works. Martin
#115469From: WIM LAMOTTEAug 1, 1994 6:04 AM
Thanks Martin, I am going to try this solution and if it works, it will be best to do this video post always _while_ rendering backwards. Wim
#115528From: MARTIN G FOSTERAug 1, 1994 1:56 PM
Wim, >> I am going to try this solution and if it works, << It does work I just tried it last night, and it does work exactly as I described. Perfect field-reversal. >> it will be best to do this video post always _while_ rendering backwards. << Generally, that wouldn't be necessary. You can reverse the field order for _only_ the machine that is going to render backwords by changing the field-order parameter in the 3ds.set file. I've done this before, too.