EXPORTING AND QUALITY

[FeeblyWeebly]

Anyone have any tips on exporting the animation in AS10, to get the best quality render, as in what format do you use, and do you change the amount of pixels before a render, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[hayasidist]

did you want the output from AS to be

a) "the finished product" (and if so, where will it be viewed - e.g. youtube; your home TV ...) or

b) do you want to use a compositor (the preferred way for pro / serious hobbyist) to assemble all the elements of a finished product (multiple animations, sound, titling, post-production effects etc)?

if a): you could export once for each "device" in a format that meets its needs; or export to support the "largest" device in terms of pixels (e.g if you have an HDTV that's what I'd choose). It would be sensible to use a codec to make the file size small - e.g. MP4. Exactly which output options you have depends on your operating system (check out the Export Animation section of the manual in chapter 18 for ASP).

if b): no question about this: export lossless (or uncompressed). PNG sequence is a good option (lossless _and_ compressed). As for size, right now, unless I have a very good reason to do otherwise (e.g. the animation is designed only for a 4:3 aspect ratio device) I always go for HDTV (1920*1080) and keep main action inside the "safe zones". The high resolution output can be "squeezed down" without losing quality, but a low resolution output can't be "stretched" to be HD without it losing resolution. I use the compositor to create output(s) fit for the intended viewing device(s).

[tvining]

I seem to be having a problem with output quality. I am importing PSD files that are about 3000x2500 pixels, with a project setting of 800x600,with animations to be edited in Final Cut Pro on a Mac. I am using oversized original PSD files since I want to have clean lines and be able to zoom a bit if I need to. The images look great on the stage when I am animating in AS, but when I export, the images/lines get jagged, and this happens no matter if I export Quicktime as Animation, H.264, etc at Maximum, or if I try exporting frames like PNG, PSD, etc. So I have two questions:

1) Is there a way to improve the output quality? I can compensate somewhat by increasing my project setting size and output, and then edit at a much smaller size, but I'd like to just get an output image that looks as good as the preview!

2) Many of the tutorials I see on output indicate that I should see a screen that allows me to customize the output compression settings, but I don't see that screen when I output from AS, I get to pick, for example, Quicktime/H.264/Maximum, but then it goes right to outputting rather than letting me manually adjust the H.264 settings. Is there a way to customize these output settings beyond the AS "Maximum, High, Normal, etc." settings?

[hayasidist]

@tvining: are you on a Mac?! I've tried here (windows) with a large and "busy" PSD (about 4000px square at 72 px/inch) imported and left at orginal size (i.e. scale =1) and it renders (to PNG sequence or QT movie/H264) and previews with no problems in an 800*600 project.

I've tried all manner of things to try to make it go wrong - low quality, different scale factors... but it seems to work fine (i.e. as expected when I choose "low quality" or scaled > 1) under every situation I've thrown at it.

re your q2: not all output formats from AS have all the tunable options - the "compression settings" dialogue box is what there is (chapter 18 in the manual around page 349 talks about mac export options) .. but compositors (e.g. adobe premiere) have a wider range of options.

if you want to upload the files, I'm sure someone with a mac will (also) take a look at it for you...

[tvining]

Yes, on a Mac--otherwise it sounds like I'm doing exactly what you're doing: oversized PSD for smaller output. I do note that the tutorials seem to have been done on a PC, so I wonder if that's the difference. In any case, it seems like the defaults on the Mac chew up the image upon output, which is really irritating, not to mention puzzling, since the preview is perfect. I sent a file to Smith Micro to look at--maybe I'll see what they make of it before I bother people here.

Thanks!

[slowtiger]

I use large PNG files (about 3000 X 3000, sometimes bigger) in a HDTV project (1920 x 1080) on Mac and never had any image quality problems.