So I’m trying to produce more video clips using Blender, in order to continue my visual experiments and learn new things. Using raw video for output, especially at the larger sizes, is impractical-- my HD only has about three gigs free, and any file larger than 30 megs becomes almost impossible to preview in MPC; it’s just too choppy to see anything.
So I want to use AVI Jpeg for output. I’ve done it before, to fine results. At 100% quality, it produces a file virtually indistinguishable from the raw version at a tiny fraction of the file size. But there’s a catch. It only works at 320240, or 640480 and above. Anything not matching those criteria turns into either an empty black picture or a garbled mess when loaded into an external video editor. The correctly-sized files, however, have no problems whatsoever.
What I guess I’m asking is why this happens. I don’t like not being able to use the exact video size I want with the exact output type I want, although as I see from my video resolutions thread I am still working well behind the times. I get a strange feeling it may have something to do with “interlacing” or some such, but I’m really not sure.
I used to all the time as well, but really you should start using PNG sequences (or OpenEXR if your really serious), and import it into your editing program as an image sequence. Use Jpeg if you really have to, but PNG is much better quality, it doesnt throw away most of your data like Jpeg does, just dont use the AVI jpg or other video outputs… Their bulky and counter productive, if your doing a large render and it crashes then your video file is ruined and you have to start over.
Render it as PNG and you can stop it and start up the render again from that exact frame. It also lets you change stuff and then re-render only that section of the animation instead of the whole thing. Of course you need to be careful, if you add a light or something and then re-render the final half of an animation then the lightings going to ‘screw up’ half way though when you play it back.
I gave PNG a shot, but even if the picture is good, the total filesize is still on the high side. Granted, even outputting to Jpeg still didn’t make the files as small as I’d like. I also tried OpenEXR, but those files wound up being much larger than the PNGs for some reason.
Although I must say it was much easier to manage in the editor as an image sequence.
what app do you use to string png’s together into a movie?
I understand that’s the better way to do things but don’t know what application to use
open source preferably
I looked at gimp and don’t see that functionality, maybe I just don’t know where to look
long ago I used paintshop pro for this but it was in the stone ages
is there a way to do this in the built in image editor?
OpenEXR has a lot more information that PNG, its what the big companies use (like ILM who created OpenEXR, more info here if your interested) Im guessing its only topped by the .hdr image format.
And yeh Ive always found image sequences much easier to work with, in many ways. Perhaps you should try tweaking some of the settings when you render as jpg sequence? If you want a small file size then turn down the quality setting? I would have thought the sequence of jpgs would be smaller than an AVI Jpg.
I just did a quick test and rendering a jpg at 100% quality was 55KB, then at 50% quality it was only 10 KB, so that might help? At 50% it was still bearable to look at but some artifacts were starting to creep in.
I have a student edition of the Adobe master collection so I use premier pro or after effects. So sorry cant help you with a opensource soloution unfortunately If anyone else knows of one though Id also be interested.
Yes you can use Blenders image sequencer (Im guessing thats what you ment) by going Shift+A and adding an image, then select all the images in the sequence individually and Blender will treat it like a image sequence, its a pain selecting all the images tho, as there doesnt seem to be a ‘import as sequence’ option like other programs have.
If anyone else knows of one though Id also be interested.