Got another question about image file sizes and DPI

[Burn Toonz]

Hi, been using MOHO for 2 days. can someone help me with this tho. I am importing drawn images off my scanner, into photoshop, colouring them selecting only the area off the drawing i want and masking the rest, then saving as a PNG file.

my question is, What DPI is acceptable to make good animation from drawings. I have been using 300dpi, and just tested an exported AVI with 3 images in the scene, 240 frames which totaled 10 seconds. The output file size for 10 seconds was about 340MB. This was at 720x420 (which i read was dvd settings, so correct me if im wrong).

Help, thanks.

[7feet]

My first question is, what sort of compression are you using? If a ten second clip is that big, it sounds like your saving to the AVI uncompressed. I had one piece that was 17 or 18 seconds and it was something over 600 MB uncompressed 640x480. The resolution of the images you drop into Moho isn't going to be the major factor in determining the file size of what Moho renders, it comes down to the compression you are using. As an example, that same file got down to 25MB as a MOV using Soresen 3, and about 12 or 13 MB as an AVI using DivX 5, and still looked good.

Also, NTSC DVD is 720x480, PAL 720x576. As far as the proper resolution for imported images, I would say it comes down to whatever you think looks good. Really huge images will probably slow down the rendering, but gives you some flexibility to zoom in on them. A basic rule of thumb, I guess, would be just big enough to look good and do what you need. I know that's not too helpful in a detailed kinda way, but it's about the best I can do at the moment.

--Brian

[Burn Toonz]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm glad to know i will be able to compress the file size from 340mb, but What sort of affect does that much compression have on the picture quality? and yes your right, I just exported the moho animation to AVI completely uncompressed

What software will i need to compress the exported files, or can i just do that when exporting them in moho.

[kdiddy13]

What software will i need to compress the exported files, or can i just do that when exporting them in moho.

You can export them compressed from Moho. Sorry, I don't have it the software in front of me, or I'd tell you specifically how to do it. Look for render settings, and go from there. (Someone with the specific steps will probably chime-in in a little bit)

Rendering as a DV (AVI for PC, or Quicktime for Mac) stream will give you a video that, although too big for the web, will look fine on DVD.

If you're going to be doing compositing with it or other work on it in another program, I'd recommend rendering it out as PNG stills or a Quicktime Animation codec file. Both are lossless compressions, ie. they're compressed, but you typically won't see the compression visually. They're large, but they're not as large as uncompressed. I prefer TIF sequences, but I can't remember if Moho supports Tif exports. I'll work at a lossless level right until I'm finished, then compress. That may seem obvious, but you'd be suprised at how many people I've come across who compress their stuff continuously through a project and can't figure out why it looks like crap.

Quicktime Pro ($30) will let you export different QT compressions. This is kind of a swiss army knife of video, I use it all the time for checking image sequences, grabbing stills from video, exporting video, viewing, etc. It's not fancy but it's cheap and does a bunch of utilitarian stuff.

DIVXX is free and can export pretty high quailty at pretty small sizes. I wouldn't use anything from DIVXX for DVD though.

If you're doing a ton of compressing, I'd recommend looking into Media Cleaner. It used to be a much better program than it is now (changed ownership a few too many times), but you can do batch compressions, and have quite a bit of control over the quality settings. It, unlike the others, is not cheap.

I'm sure there are tons of others out there, but that's what I use.
________
Roor bongs

[nobudget]

Two small suggestions:

- DV compression (the one MiniDV cameras use) is generally very good and has a datarate of 3,5MB per second, that's 1/5 of the uncompressed file. Mpeg2 has better compression (variable settings, DV is fixed) but is not really suitable for editing later.

- The DPI story is too long to examine here, but to keep it simple, forget about DPI. Think in pixels, PAL is 720X576, NTSC 720X480(?). Read about HDTV and anamorphic and other formats when you understand the basics, there's no need to fill your head with terminology yet.

Good luck,

Reindert.
www.nobudetvideo.com

[Burn Toonz]

Thanks for the help. This software keeps getting better and better, and although i havent figured out all the compression and visual settings just yet, I'm on my way, (thanks to the help from people on this forum), I did test out linking 2 different scenes both were only 72 frames, using nero vision express 2. To my suprise i actually got it to dvd+rw and viewed the short clip on my dvd player.

When i first found out 'Moho' didnt have a scene manager i was rethinking my purchase, but then i read a post by Lost Marble explaining the reason for this, and to create a new file for each scene, then use the video editing or dvd aurthouring tools to create the full clip.

Thanks for the fellas.

by the way, Before i tried the demo of Moho, i downloaded the latest demo of toon boom studio, and am glad to say that my AU$132.00 was well spent.