CompuServe Thread

Godot, << 35 MM Film >> I'm reposting a partial thread. – jonas[adesk] ======================================= Ralph, I base the image resoultion on what the final product print will be, but allways use a 3:2 ratio. Kodak's format is 3072×2048, which will produce a very good slide, albeit very large images file. For quick slides I often use 1023×682 or even 798×532 – (corresponding to 1024×768 & 798×532 displays). For the big ones, I tend to base it on 3DS' RAM needs (I hate paging!<g>) but they will be around 2001×1334 or so. (for preview renders it's convenient to use 639×426 or 300×200) Going out to 35mm gives you a LOT of lattitude. Since it's continuos tone, you might have a difficlut time telling the differences gained from resolutions if there aren't tell-tale things like text and linear lines in your images (always load the image in PhotoStyler or PhotoShop to check if the rez is ok). Are you going to print these? If so, pay the few extra bucks to have the image put to 35mm-print film as well (usually cheaper and always better than an inter-neg). Also, give the slide to the person doing your custom prints so they have a color map to base their developing on. This can save you a LOT of "but the sky's not that green" conversations. Slides are never color corrected where as prints always are. It's surprising but IMHO color prints are better, and in most cases cheaper, then dye-sub's. Oh yea, ALWAYS use an aspect ratio of 1.0 – you want the image rectangular! And be careful of bitmaps and backgrounds – they should NEVER be smaller then the printed resoultion or they will pixelated. Hope this was of some help, – Phil ========================= The "best" resolution for slides is a compromise between reasonable rendering times and image quality. If you don't need your computer for a week then render your image at 4096×2732 (make sure your shadow maps are equally massive). I do a lot of slides and find that as long as antialiasing is turned on I rarely need to exceed 2048×1366. I have made 16"x20" photographic prints from slides (or 4"x5"s) at this resolution and, unless you deliberatly go looking for them, pixelization is not noticable.

Are you talking 35mm movie stock, or slides? Sounds like you're talking about 35mm movie film. Although the resolution will be the same, it would seem that time and rendering would be a factor if you're doing movie stock. For 35mm film I think 2048×1352 and 4096×2704 are standard. I would think 4096 would be a bit out of hand unless you had a couple hundred machines. For Kodak daylight movie stock you need to keep a close eye on color temperature, although I imagine it's much more forgiving in the digital domain than when lighting a "live" set. There are primarily two type of movie stock – tungsten, and daylight. I can't remember the stock numbers right now, but if you need them I'll look them up. Just light the scene as you would a movie set, using specific _blue_ and _orange_ tints on your spots and omnis to get the right look, otherwise you could end up with an image that's too orange or too blue. Call Berkeley color labs or some other gel manufacturer and get the the exact color values of their various color temperature gels… that way you can't go wrong. What gets used mostly on movie sets is "CTO", an orange neutral tint that doesn't show color on film, for warmer light, and "BLUE", a specific blue tint that also doesn't color film, for a cooler light. CTO and BLUE are slang terms, but the folks at any movie lighting facility will be able to tell you the "official" name – I can't remember anymore. If you do get these exact color values, please post them for me… I'm very curious. If you need more specific advice about film and light colors, I was a lighting designer in the film biz for many years, and can help. Contact me E-mail in that case. For BetaSP I recommend using an Abekas A60 series ddr. This is a D1 spec real-time playback device, and many video post production facilities have them and the rates are very competetive here in the US. Otherwise, single frame is tried and true, and works for plenty of people doing broadcast stuff. John Tissavary (La Luna cie)