Broadcast HD production and SU
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I am trying to find out if anyone is using or has used SU animations in broadcast HD production. I've been researching like crazy but can't seem to find just what I need which would be an actual workflow description.
It seems to me that SU could work quite well if the right type of style is used. Practice animations that we have done so far give good movement but too much small line flicker. We are assuming that SU's sketchy style will not produce the super smooth detailed animations that one normally sees on on shows such as Discovery or Science channel. But we do think we can incorporate some of the "sketchiness" that it does produce.
If anyone has any pointers on where we can find some pertinent information, we would be eternally grateful. Thanks,
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I would love to see SU in television productions. I'm very unfamiliar with what is needed though. I do know that for best video quality, most of tend to export a series of png images at 2 to 3 times the desired resolution and then shrink them in a Photoshop batch or in Premiere or the Mac (Movie Maker?) program. It helps get better looking resolution. What kind of specific info are you looking for?
I'm sure others who actually know something will jump in. There are a bunch of film guys around,
Chris
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I always had the dream of actors (in front of a blue screen) being placed into a Black&White SketchUp model... but thats not what you want, I guess.
with enough time (and I think SU7 is a lot faster with image export) and the method Chris described (re sampling image size) you can get quite an acceptable quality.
what you will be needing is probably flightpath2, a plugin to create rather smooth fly through animations. but in order to control the speed throughout the animation you need other plugins. therefore it makes sense to buy the whole animation bundle at smustard.com (its only 16$).
ideal for creating camera paths is fredo6's bezier curve tool.I have been wanting to write a detailed description for a long time. maybe I find time this weekend.
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I would welcome any help that anyone could offer especially in the area of smoother animations. I did find a motion graphics commercial made for Volkswagen which was apparently shown at a trade show. It was extremely well done and featured primarily sketchup graphics.
I'm beginning to believe that HD broadcast production is quite possible if one designs the right "container" for the sketchup graphics.
We've been thinking of maybe a a slow zoom into a drafting table full of blueprints from above and then dissolving out to a sketchups motion graphic or something along that line. Also, am going to purchase that animation bundle from smustard.
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I think that the Volkswagen commercial you are talking about was made by Mike Tadros and Alex Oliver at Igloo Studios. They run the back-2-school. I'm not sure how its spelled. Mike would be a good person to talk to about this stuff. He has been incredibly active in SketchUp training. He might have some pointers on how they achieved that animation.
Chris
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Is there anything special w/ HD other than resolution?
If not, then I don't see any reason you can't do a great HD animation w/ SU. I'd agree w/ all the tips given here so far. I've used Adobe Premiere to compile a series of png's from SU and have been very happy with it.
I cracked open the software just now and it even has a preset you save your image as a 1080i movie and burn it directly to DVD or Blue-Ray. Cool stuff.
Here's the best SU animation tutorial I know of. It's pretty much the method I've went by in my use.
-Brodie
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@chris fullmer said:
I would love to see SU in television productions. I'm very unfamiliar with what is needed though. I do know that for best video quality, most of tend to export a series of png images at 2 to 3 times the desired resolution and then shrink them in a Photoshop batch or in Premiere or the Mac (Movie Maker?) program. It helps get better looking resolution. What kind of specific info are you looking for?
I'm sure others who actually know something will jump in. There are a bunch of film guys around,
Chris
Never gonna happen. Why would anyone use SU for broadcast animation when there are apps. designed specifically for this that make SU look like a flipbook.
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@double espresso said:
@chris fullmer said:
I would love to see SU in television productions. I'm very unfamiliar with what is needed though. I do know that for best video quality, most of tend to export a series of png images at 2 to 3 times the desired resolution and then shrink them in a Photoshop batch or in Premiere or the Mac (Movie Maker?) program. It helps get better looking resolution. What kind of specific info are you looking for?
I'm sure others who actually know something will jump in. There are a bunch of film guys around,
Chris
Never gonna happen. Why would anyone use SU for broadcast animation when there are apps. designed specifically for this that make SU look like a flipbook.
It is going to happen because I'm going to do it. I'll post the program times here on this forum although it's going to be fall of 09 before it's ready for broadcast.
The decision to use sketchup is part practical and part creative. Practical because we can accomplish more animation faster at less cost and creative because I like the sketchy look. It lends itself to an engineering inspired program which is what our project is.
In answer to Chris: Not so much about resolution as smoothness of the animation flow and how the sketchy look holds
together visually. I've seen enough sketchup animations now to know that it can be done. -
It is going to happen because I'm going to do it. I'll post the program times here on this forum although it's going to be fall of 09 before it's ready for broadcast.
The decision to use sketchup is part practical and part creative. Practical because we can accomplish more animation faster at less cost and creative because I like the sketchy look. It lends itself to an engineering inspired program which is what our project is.
In answer to Chris: Not so much about resolution as smoothness of the animation flow and how the sketchy look holds
together visually. I've seen enough sketchup animations now to know that it can be done.[/quote]I hope it works out and will keep a look out. I assume you are talking about creating SU models then taking them into rendering and animation programs. I have seen a number of examples posted on this forum where comic book and storyboard illustrators do this very effectively. Beyond that, I can't imagine using SU to actually create the animation scenes for anything beyond a very basic short. Do you have a broadcast deal in place for this?
DE
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Well, it's all about the "look." It seems like we two choices: one is to use sketchup as is with no other rendering done anywhere else in order to preserve the "sketchy/hand design" aspect. I like this idea if we can pull it off because I like the look of hand design. I'm a sketch artist myself and I can visualize a clip in which one would start with a closeup(s) on an artists hands pencilling up the final lines on a drawing and then closing in on the drawing and watching it go into an animation.
The second is to render with some other program and try to match the "cleanliness" of line that the more sophisticated programs can achieve. If that's the look I wanted, we would just get the software that could do that in the first place.
The sketchup animations that we've done so far out of SU 7 Pro are not bad at all with the exception of some line flickering because of thin lines.
However, having said all that, we are still definitely on the learning/testing curve and some things could change. But of course, that's what makes this business so much fun.
And yes, it's a go.
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@film842 said:
Well, it's all about the "look." It seems like we two choices: one is to use sketchup as is with no other rendering done anywhere else in order to preserve the "sketchy/hand design" aspect. I like this idea if we can pull it off because I like the look of hand design. I'm a sketch artist myself and I can visualize a clip in which one would start with a closeup(s) on an artists hands pencilling up the final lines on a drawing and then closing in on the drawing and watching it go into an animation.
The second is to render with some other program and try to match the "cleanliness" of line that the more sophisticated programs can achieve. If that's the look I wanted, we would just get the software that could do that in the first place.
The sketchup animations that we've done so far out of SU 7 Pro are not bad at all with the exception of some line flickering because of thin lines.
However, having said all that, we are still definitely on the learning/testing curve and some things could change. But of course, that's what makes this business so much fun.
And yes, it's a go.
Would you model the hand in Sketchup or are you talking about filming a real person's hand then pushing in and animating the drawing.
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I think we would be better off by by using a live person. We would establish the scene by both medium overhead shots of a drafting table with someone working on the drawing/blueprint. Picture a single drafting table in a pool of light (obviously shot in a studio) then cut to extreme closeups of a hand and pencil moving across the paper, closeups of some of the drafting tools, maybe a shot of a close by computer monitor with a drawing on it, then an extreme closeup of the head of the pencil finishing a line, then tilt up to reveal the drawing itself which would then go into a simple animation.
The whole idea is to provide an intro to the viewer of what is coming, i.e., the animation and that the animation of this piece of equipment is the result of an engineers design. The other reason is that we would return to this "frame of reference" at other points in the program. -
@film842 said:
I think we would be better off by by using a live person. We would establish the scene by both medium overhead shots of a drafting table with someone working on the drawing/blueprint. Picture a single drafting table in a pool of light (obviously shot in a studio) then cut to extreme closeups of a hand and pencil moving across the paper, closeups of some of the drafting tools, maybe a shot of a close by computer monitor with a drawing on it, then an extreme closeup of the head of the pencil finishing a line, then tilt up to reveal the drawing itself which would then go into a simple animation.
The whole idea is to provide an intro to the viewer of what is coming, i.e., the animation and that the animation of this piece of equipment is the result of an engineers design. The other reason is that we would return to this "frame of reference" at other points in the program.I agree the use of Live Action and Animation makes for an more engaging segue. You may want to think of morphing the live action into an animated form, think A Scanner Darkly - Keanu Reeves. Now it gets interesting if you greenscreen the actor into the Sketchup model. BTW - they are remaking Tron.
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And here's the lead character.
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I would be very interested to see your progress here and the way you are getting around the graphical limitations for broadcasting. I have tried exporting animations from sketchup for TV but run into horrible line flickering due to the interlacing. I think that if sketchup could handle anisotropic filtering it would be easy just to beef up the lines a little, but as it is you end up with problems whenever you are zoomed out and there are a lot of little lines close together. Please report on any workaround you come up with!
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Where did that character come from? Absolutely hilarious and somewhat scary at the same time.
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Hey - I just stumbled across this thread. Chris already mentioned, but we were the ones that created that Volkswagen commercial that was initially referenced in this thread. I'd be glad to help in any way that I can on what we've learned about SketchUp in a motion graphics workflow.
For the Volkswagen commercial, we used SketchUp as a central planning and final graphics tool, but we also mashed together a number of other programs including:
-Adobe Illustrator
-Adobe Photoshop
-Adobe AfterEffects
-Video footage
-Still photography
-All edited with Final Cut Pro (Premiere would be fine for PC users)So while SketchUp would not readily be considered a fit for high-end motion graphics, I do believe that it can provide a fresh aesthetic, and when combined with other programs, one can work around the flickering from SketchUp Animation renders.
Anyhow, we've since completed a few other animations, films, and motion graphics projects. My favorite one that we most recently finished (although pretty simple) was for Google.org: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FsSN7YWHc&feature=channel_page. Be sure to watch in high quality.
Let me know what specs, if any, would be most helpful to share.
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Alex,
Wow...
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To be honest, I wouldn't use Sketchup animation for anything professional.
It,s just not suited for that.
And if you do, I recommend using sketchup 4 as it was better suited for the job (no shadow bug etc...)
It's sad, but animation got worse since that version. Even the ability to choose a different video codec was lost in later versions.Animation is one of the areas Sketchup could be improved a lot....but don't get your hopes up.
Google does its own thing , not really listening to what users wish for....I'd go for Cinema4D for your project as it is quite powerful and easier than 3dsMax or Maya to pick up.
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