Broadcast HD production and SU
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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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@atotheo said:
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.
Alex,
Thanks for your offer of help. Very much appreciated. My first question is whether any of the work you've done has ended up on an interlaced broadcast format? It would be helpful to know whether you designed for interlaced output or stayed with progressive for final and what your opinion is about it.
From that point, our questions fall in the area of workflow such as whether or not you rendered out your animations in Sketchup or did you take them to another program for rendering? And did you design your own styles and if so, do you have any guidance there?
The last question has to do with exporting an animation out with an alpha background. Do you know if that is possible or not?
Like yourself we'll be combining with After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and then Premiere Pro. -
My understanding is that if you export a .png on a Mac, the background comes out transparent. It does not a PC. So perhaps you could export your animation as a series of .pngs from a Mac and then you could put the pngs together into a video, therby getting your video with transparent background.
Chris
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