Exporting to Quicktime on a PC?
-
Mr S
I haven’t done any animations for ages but let me remind You that there are some
interesting threads about animations and Codecs if You havent been through that allready here:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6954
and a great tutorial by Paul Ruslan here:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=654Hope this is of some help.
Mateo -
Export the animation as a still sequence, use quicktime pro to compile it into a mov file, using any of the (way better than windows media) codecs supplied by apple. One difference I´ve found between exporting stills and avi or mov files is the line thickness. On avi and mov files they usually come out as thick lines, which i don´t like. On still sequence they come out thin(ner).
Even better, export at twice the resolution your video will be, without antialiasing, and then, on quicktime, make it half size. The results are thin crisp lines, and instant antialiasing. And it takes about the same time exporting at x res with antialiasing than at 2x without.
-
Great, I will try these solutions.
I particulary like seeing thin crisp lines rather than the thick mess produced by Windows codecs.
So, the still image export solution looks good. (PNG or JPEG?)
Will look at the links provided as well
Thanks for this very useful info guys.Still be nice to be able to export directly to QuickTime from within SketchUp.
Just tried exporting some still frames (xxx.jpg) from SketchUp under the animation export option.
In the dialog box there is no setting available for quality compression or for anti-aliasing to be on/off as you would normally get when exporting a still image using the 2D export option. Any ideas?
Regards
Mr S -
I´m now using sketchup on osx, but not long ago, i used windows... I remember that with each revision of version 6 free, they started adding additional features to export, like the ability to change resolution. Check that you are running the latest version of skp, if not, probably going pro is the solution.... (or doing it on a mac
)s
just saw your signature, i see you are running pro.... I´m sure that you can change the output resolution of still frame animation, though i don´t recall seeing an antialias button there. But, try and export at 2x resolution and downsize. That should work.
-
Hi,
Yes, I am using the latest Pro version.
My query was that when exporting 2D still JPGs you can specify the resolution size and whether you wish anti-aliasing applied.
When exporting JPG stills from the Animation export option there is no option available concerning anti-aliasing.
I just wondered why.Regards
Mr S -
Hi,
I thought I would just update this thread with a little bit more information about the end results I have obtained with my animation tests.
As suggested, I produced still JPEGS at twice the resolution I required from the Animation export option. The finished size animation I required needed to be 856px X 480px (16:9 aspect ration), and lasts for 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
I have pretty much given up on any Windows codecs.
Even when rendering uncompressed AVI files which produced file sizes in the gigabytes, they still suffered from anti-aliasing!Using Quicktime Pro I produced animations using different "codec" options.
The first one I tried (seemed the obvious one) was "Animation"
This produced a very reasonable file size but suffered from anti-aliasing.I then tried using the "Graphics" option.
This produced a fantastic result. Smooth animation with almost no anti-aliasing visible at all. The price to pay for this was a file size of 260Mb. This codec only supports an 8bit colour palette, so you could experience colour banding, depending on your subject matter.Lastly, I upgraded to the latest version of Quicktime which provides the option to export using the new H.264 codec.
I had high hopes for this!
The end result was the same as using the "Graphics" codec but without the colour depth restrictions.
Great, but the end file size was 330Mb.So, I can now produce good quality animations, but at the price of suffering pretty hefty files sizes.
Hope this info proves useful to others.
Regards
Mr S -
Hi Mr S,
Have you tried - after exporting the still at bigger resolution - resize them in an image editor (there are a couple of them with batch resizing features) and with antialiasing at the same time? After this you could try the animation codec again - maybe it wouldn't screw already AA'd images.
-
Hi Gaieus,
I could have reduced the files to the finished dimensions required using the batch option in Photoshop. That would have removed the need for Quicktime to rescale the images for output. But Quicktime did such an excellent job of rescaling and preventing the dreaded jaggies that I just avoided adding an additional step to the process.
However, I may try what you suggest and try the "Animation" codec again.
This produced a much more reasonable file size.
If it can do it without the jaggies that would be perfect.
Thanks.Mr S
-
Yes exactly - that's what I meant as well.
-
I would be interested in hearing the results if you do try batch resize in PS before creating the animation.
-
The "Extended" version of Photoshop CS3 also has the capability to assemble an image sequence into a video, and then export it as either MOV or any other available format. Since the imported sequence of stills appears as a single video layer, you can resize it or apply (some) filters or layer effects to it before rendering it out to video. Or you can rotoscope individual frames (haven't tried it yet, but sounds neat). Or you can layer multiple video layers and control their transparency at various points during the timeline.
Of course, PS CS3 is a much more expensive option than Quicktime Pro.
Advertisement