Good movie quality

dutchesse

Hey all,
I have created a pretty elaborate file for a client that shows a light rail track along a stretch of road.
The client has been showing this model to several people in small meetings to make their case for where its locations should be and now are interested in posting it on the web for the general public to view. The problem is the quality: the file is about 50,000 KB and when I make a video straight out of SketchUp I have to reduce the size so much that the quality becomes pretty bad. I am not familiar with video software enough to know where to start but very willing to learn how to make a better video and what to use.
Is anybody able to give me advice ... thanks

Esther

Dave R

Is the quality reduction just because you've not set the size large enough? Or are you running into other problems if you do set the size to be something larger? How long does the animation run? How many frames? What format are you using for export? Have you tried exporting still images (still using the Animation export) and combining them in a video editor? More details, please.

dutchesse

so far I have been reducing the frame rate in Sketchup export to make the file small enough to where I can play it on you tube but the qulaity is pretty bad. I have a feeling the solution of reducing file size comes from other programs. Do I just export it as big as possible and then use something else to make it internet worthy? Just haven't had to use videos just yet.

Dave R

Yes. I think you should let your editing application do the compressing. I've had good success exporting larger PNG images through the Animation Export option and then assembling them in the video editor after which I do the editing and the saving.

You might also find it helpful to export the animation in shorter segments and combine them in your editor.

solo

Export animation to .png image sequence, compile in 3rd party video editor, ideal result is HD 1280x720 .mpeg 4 (mp4) for presentations, I have used this for many animation presentations, even for television animations without issue.

dutchesse

ok, found the .png option, but what frame rate should I use?
The client wants to show it on a digital screen with a resolution of 1280x768, so I'll set resolution at 1280x720 as solo suggested.

babysteps, but I'm confident I'll get there
thanks for helping me out guys :0)

honoluludesktop

Using Win Mover Maker converts my SketchUp .avi from about 9,000 kb to 1,000 kb, and outputs it as a .wmv file. Adding sound, and some titles increased its size by 400 kb.

Don't know if quality is lost in the process, Run a test strip and judge for yourself. Here is some info on it.

dutchesse

Got it converted to .png and used moviemaker to create the movie. It plays it superslow though and increasing the speed does not seem to make any difference. Was I supposed to leave the image at 7min? (I changed it to 1 min). Videodub does not take .wmv files so I need to convert it ot a mp4 now? What is a good file converter?

Dave R

Try this:

In SU, set the frame rate for 15 frames/second.
Export the images.
Import them into VirtualDub. Make sure you export at 15 frames/second.
Export an AVI file from that.
If you need a WMV file, import the AVI to Movie Maker and save it. Add titles or scene transitions or whatever you want to do there.

honoluludesktop

Just guessing, but how does movie maker know the frame speed of individual images? Why didn't you import the sketchup .avi into movie maker? Btw, I have no experience with importing individual images, and someone else will have to help you with that.

dutchesse

Again, I am a first time Sketchup movie maker so I am still pretty clueless. The reason I did not do .avi is because 2 responded with the .npg solution. It's not that I need a .wmv file, it's just what was available for free to try it out. Granted I do not know how to work moviemaker just yet but so far I am not very impressed, there appears to be no "save as" option to save it in any other format but .wmv. Virtualdub accepts just about any file format but .wmv.
What editing application/3rd party video editior should I use? Is there a step by step tutorial somwhere on how to do this maybe?
Solo, I noticed your "I am for hire", out of curiosity, how much would you charge for turning this into a mp4 presentation?

dutchesse

Okiedokie, been dorking around with this thing in my spare time and I think I have some decent results now.
I tried to follow Solo's suggestion on exporting it in .avi format, unfortunately I could not get this to work. The result looked all messed up with goofy colors, 4-split screens and it didn't even start where it was supposed to. Even after breaking the file down in 4 segments and try to save as individual .avi files so I could glue them together afterwards was not a solution. I suspect It has something to do with the animation plugin I used to where I can set each scene transition time individually. Plan B was to go back to saving it in .png frames wich took about 10 hours to process. I used virtualdub to save it into an uncompressed .avi file. Solo advised purchasing the following program: http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/overview_en_US.html?fileName=overview&r=1 a user friendly program in wich I was able to convert the uncompressed .avi file to the various formats I needed. Here is the you tube link, in case anyone is interested how it turned out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8doRqSRnu08

Baby steps .... I know this is nothing compared to what some of the guys here put out but concidering the timeframe I had I'm pretty tickled with the result so far(thanks again Solo).

Dave R

Very nice work Esther. It looks like it's working for you.

dutchesse

thanks Dave