#Targa 16 rendering
3 messages in this thread
Gentlemen! I love your product…and am looking forward to 2.0.
Maybe at NCGA? Anyway… We have just installed a Targa 16 on a 486
33 and now render to it. Two questions arise.
1) Can we play an animation on the Targa, if so, how?
2) We will need to know the "right questions" to ask of a service bureau
in order to select a vendor for transferring our animations to tape with a
single frame render and transfer method. Please advise.
Actually, if you would be so kind as to offer a high level overview of
how to transfer an RGB targa animation to tape I would be very
interested. I found appendix A to be a little sketchy on this topic.
Any Florida based service bureaus that would like to respond, we
welcome you letting us know what you can do in this regard.
Unfortunately, I really don't have a lot of time to spend answering
questions this month since I'm so wrapped up in finishing 3DSr2. But
here are some quick answers to your questions:
1) You can't plan an animation on the Targa 16. You can with AA Pro
on the Targa Plus, with the special driver from Truevision (available
here in DL9, I think).
2) There are a number of video animation experts here in the forum,
like KevinK, RobertS, etc. I'm sure they can answer your second
question better than I.
I may not be considered one of the "experts" on this forum but I would
like to give you some hints based on my experiences – plus many of
the part timers will be off the forum til Monday.
I'll answer the last paragraph first. You can render to disk any resolution
of .tga file, typically 512×486 or 756×486 for video (24 bits or 32 bits if
you want alpha channel transparency info), or up to 4k x 4k for film or
slides and give it to a service bureau. If you render to the NULL driver
you are not limited to 16 bit which is a dithered version of the 24 bit
file. You can supply just a .3ds file to a service bureau which they will
render for you (more expensive) or render it yourself and supply them with
all your sequentially numbered .tga files (less expensive). I have always
done the latter since it is more economical for me, however, in the case of
a large project you will have the problem of how to transfer your .tga
files to their system. Floppies (OK for small projects), backup tapes,
removable media like syquest drives or bernoulli cartridges, or taking your
system and lap-linking them through the parallel or serial port, are all
possibilities. You must establish compatible media between you the bureau.
Questions to ask: How much per finished second for rendering (typically $50
and up) or if just laying your .tgas to tape how much per hour (I pay
$45-$100 depending on equipment level) or per frame ($1 per frame, for
example). What equipment do they have, e.g. frame buffer (targa+16/32 or 64
is good or VISTA 4Mb with external encoder is Better), what VTR SVHS and
3/4" SP are good, BETACAM SP better, D1 D2 or M II are BEST. The fastest
for laying to video is SONY LVR5000 video disk and is BETACAM quality. If
you have a very large project consider renting a VTR, animation controller,
and frame buffer as it may be more cost effective than paying the service
bureau. Ask about turnaround time.
I hope this helps. Bon Voyage!