Latest posts for the topic "Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow"

Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

Here is the workflow I used to get from Moviestorm render to finished product on the ad absurdum series, and am very pleased with the results. 1) Render out of Moviestorm at Ultra / 1280x720. 2) Extract audio tracks from these Moviestorm files. (see this thread) 3) Edit in Sony Vegas. I turn OFF the motion blur on every video track, which helps keep the image clean. Complete all post production (incl. soundtrack) using that and other tools as needed. 4) Render out of Sony Vegas as 800x450 (16:9) uncompressed AVI, uncompressed PCM audio. 1.0 Pixel Aspect Ratio; Field Order: None (Progressive). Highest Quality settings wherever indicated. Default keyframe settings. 25 fps. Then, the versions: A) DivX AVI - I feed the uncompressed 800x450 avi into the DivX Converter, and render out at that same resolution / framerate, keeping default settings except that I up the audio ceiling to 128kbps. This yields a significant improvement in audio quality vs. the default settings. Working Example of A: (link) B) QuickTime - I open the uncompressed 800x450 avi in QuickTime Pro, and render out a .mov at that same resolution / framerate using H.264 codec, AAC 44.1kHz audio, readied for Fast Internet Streaming. Working Example of B: (download) C) Flash - for Blip.tv and for my own website; I open the uncompressed 800x450 avi in QuickTime Pro, and render out a .flv (Flash Video) 720x405 (16:9) / 25fps file using the Flix Exporter plugin; 700-800kbps overall bitrate with 160kbps of that used by audio. The reason I use a smaller resolution here is purely practical; it fits better on my web page. Working Example of C: (link) D) QuickTime for Moviestorm Website - Same settings as B above (QuickTime), except I render at a custom resolution of 426x240. (For some reason, when I'd render out at the recommended 427 pixels wide, I noticed a one-pixel-wide green line at the right side of my video image; perhaps a rounding issue? So I did 426x240 and it went away. Working Example of D: (link - you'll have to download it until the viewer issues are resolved) E) For YouTube - Same settings as A above (DivX), except I change the resolution to 320x180. Note that YouTube states that it wants 320x240, but if you upload 320x180, it will automatically pad the video with letterbox so it works out fine. Working Example of E: (link) For me, the significant part of the equation is that I always create that intermediary uncompressed avi (at the highest needed resolution) before I go creating my distribution renders. In my experience, when I've tried to force the various other resolutions within Vegas, alignment issues with video layers can arise, and it just doesn't seem to resize at very good quality. QuickTime Pro and the DivX Converter seem to be very good at resizing without much degradation in quality, so I let those tools do that job. I don't do WMV files anymore, but if I did I'd follow the same principle: let Windows Media Encoder handle the resizing (if any). I'm very interested to hear from others who are happy with their video quality, what are you doing to achieve it?

Re:My Moviestorm Render Workflow

zuckerman — GMT

Overman! You are a prince among men. This is incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for this tutorial.

Re:My Moviestorm Render Workflow

johnnie — GMT

I second that - this is an incredibly helpful and well-written post. Hope you don't mind if I sticky the thread, so we can all easily bask in the machinima-greatness that is Overman 8) .

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

Ah, I'm far from having achieved machinima greatness. But I'm happy to help however I can. Sticky away!

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Fulkster — GMT

Darned helpful! Thanks!

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

johnnie — GMT

Overman wrote:

Ah, I'm far from having achieved machinima greatness.

Don't make me put this to a vote, Phil :-) If I say you're great, then you're great. I have admin privs on this forum. My word is law.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Toriel — GMT

Excellent work! This is very very helpful. Thanks :D

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

davidwww — GMT

Thanks overman your a legend, this is really a great help I have my video sizes all over the place, now I can bring them under control. Regards Davidwww P.S. I spent a lot of time watching the movies on your site last night and my favorite is Male Restroom Etiquette, I was killing myself laughing, if any of you have not watched it yet, especially the male members of MS, its a must.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Thanks *** VERY MUCH *** for this! It completely answers the question I tried to ask before about video formats. I'm looking at a quad-core system. What kind of render times are you getting from your system? joel

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

RiViT — GMT

Is it possible to output a Moviestorm animation file that's 29.97 or 30 fps? Or is it just PAL? If it is just PAL, is there a plan to create an NTSC version down the road? This isn't really noticeable for short projects, but it may become important later to North American projects with a longer running time.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

gishzida wrote:

What kind of render times are you getting from your system?

Great question, I haven't yet timed it. I've got some renders I'll be doing tomorrow, I'll plan on clocking them and get back to you.

RiViT wrote:

Is it possible to output a Moviestorm animation file that's 29.97 or 30 fps? Or is it just PAL? If it is just PAL, is there a plan to create an NTSC version down the road?

In its current state, it only outputs 25fps (PAL), but a new render system is coming before too long and I am 99% certain it will include not only NTSC framerates but support for other codecs as well.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

I finally have a rough draft of my music video but I got problems... not that one... this one: I just tried to save uncompressed and quickly exceeded 4 Gb of space and the Vegas render failed. So tell me what am I doing wrong here? [EDIT] One other question: In your workflow you say you open the avi in QTPro and render it for QT... Why? You can render QT in Vegas if QTP is installed. Is there a render time difference doing it in QTP vs. Vegas? [/EDIT]

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

1) 4GB filx size limit. This is a limitation of hard drives formatted as FAT16 or FAT32. In order to be able to exceed this size, you need to write to a disk drive formatted as NTFS. Windows should have a way to convert the drive without losing data, though a backup beforehand is never a bad idea. 2) QTPro out of Vegas. I don't know if there's a render time difference, it just fits better with my workflow to do one render out of Vegas and let other programs do phase 2. I've noticed odd anomalies when switching render sizes / etc. in Vegas, so I prefer to get one MASTER (the uncompressed .avi) out of Vegas, then I am ensured that all subsequent renders are coming from exactly the same source.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

RiViT — GMT

Overman wrote:

In its current state, it only outputs 25fps (PAL), but a new render system is coming before too long and I am 99% certain it will include not only NTSC framerates but support for other codecs as well.

That would be very good news. Thanks.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Overman wrote:

1) 4GB filx size limit. This is a limitation of hard drives formatted as FAT16 or FAT32. In order to be able to exceed this size, you need to write to a disk drive formatted as NTFS. Windows should have a way to convert the drive without losing data, though a backup beforehand is never a bad idea.

What kind of uncompressed files sizes are you getting? [EDIT] One other thing I'm not sure that using uncompressed video actually helps any as the source video is not uncompressed. I looked at the properties of one of the output files from one of the scenes I created: Frame Rate: 25FPS Data Rate: 1575kbps 24 bit MS-MPEG4 V2 [FFDS] compression. I'm not to video savvy but what I learned in 'the MP3 era' was the less you messed with compressing / decompressing an audio file the less likely you were to create audio "artifacts" which did not exist in the master WAV audio file. Since MovieStorm gives is a compressed output the best that can be hoped for is to create the "master cut / edit" of the files in the same format as noted above. I think this would be less likely to give you "odd' results... then from this master cut create all of the separate variants [/EDIT]

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

The uncompressed files are huge, and it's not uncommon to go above that 4gb mark; NTFS is definitely required if you're going to go there. Was covered in another thread here, I believe. I am already aware that, in its current state, Moviestorm does not spit out uncompressed video. I prefer to work with an uncompressed master, however, because I can have full PCM wav quality in the soundtrack, and because it recompresses faster when it's time to make the "versions". (I never use Moviestorm's audio output for anything other than a reference guide). If you have your master compressed, then every subsequent render you perform will first decompress that codec and then recompress to the other. So if you're starting with compressed source footage, there will always be at least ONE decompress step and ONE recompress step. Even if you have Vegas handle it all, those steps are still going on, it is unavoidable. I just prefer to separate them because it fits better for my workflow, but it's precisely the same number of decompress/recompress steps. You don't HAVE to have a master, it's just what I prefer to do, because I end up rendering to a lot of different formats for a lot of different purposes. If you don't need one, then don't do one, just render straight out of your NLE, it really just comes down to preference, not one or the other being a superior method.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

Overman wrote:

gishzida wrote:

What kind of render times are you getting from your system?
Great question, I haven't yet timed it. I've got some renders I'll be doing tomorrow, I'll plan on clocking them and get back to you.

Okay, just got finished timing one. 1280x720. Full-sized outdoor set, lots of props (houses, trees / bushes, cars, some furniture, etc.), three characters, multiple cameras, some moving some still, about 10 distinct shots. 2232 frames rendered in 4 minutes 20 seconds. So about 8-9 frames per second on average.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Overman wrote:

Okay, just got finished timing one. 1280x720. Full-sized outdoor set, lots of props (houses, trees / bushes, cars, some furniture, etc.), three characters, multiple cameras, some moving some still, about 10 distinct shots. 2232 frames rendered in 4 minutes 20 seconds. So about 8-9 frames per second on average.

Yikes! that's about 8 times faster than my P4 2.6 gHz... where the average scene was about the same 2000 to 2200 frames. On the topic of Compress decompress: I'm using a wav audio master [PCM 44.1 khz] mastered in Sound Forge which was rendered originally in Acid Pro [for music] for the sound tracks but given that the fastest rate for video is a compressed a 1.5 mbps stream with MovieStorm, there is no real advantage to creating an uncompressed video render. This isn't analog audio where "oversampling" can make a difference. Efffectively all you end up doing is creating a really big file that contains a lot of extra frames that do not add to the video quality. Given that 176.4 KBytes / second is the actual sampling rate for 44.1 khz 16 bit audio [about 10.1 Mb per minute] and the frame rate for for MS's MPEG output is 196 Kbytes / second you should lose no audio when you edit and render back to the same format... or if you are concerened about the audio being compressed add the sample sizes together [372 Kbps-- call it 22 or so Mb a minute] and the file size is actually much more manageable.... The video / audio output ultimately be only as good as the slowest rate used in all the files used.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

gishzida wrote:

...but given that the fastest rate for video is a compressed a 1.5 mbps stream with MovieStorm, there is no real advantage to creating an uncompressed video render.

The sole advantage for me, while Moviestorm's source is still compressed, is the speed of dealing with an uncompressed file when generating multiple versions. It is in some cases slightly faster, in others ridiculously faster. Experiment for yourself, you will see. Once Moviestorm offers uncompressed source video, the advantages multiply. For now, the speed is enough reason for me; once I took spatial considerations out of the equation, my limited time became my most precious commodity. So it's worth a little "wasted" disk space, which comes a lot cheaper than time lately. ;)

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Eeep! The problem I'm dealing with is that it's a P4 system and the "large Drive" is a 500 gB external USB device formatted to FAT32... I'd move the contents elsewhere and format it NTFS but I don't have enough space available to move everything,,, As it is I just had to Clone my main drive from an 80 gB drive to a 120 gB drive... As for render times: As you may have seen I've put up a rough cut of my first "music video". Not a grand affair by any means. Using it, the PAL DV 720 x 576 25 Frame rate [9050 frames] [1.441 Mbps stream] uncompressed audio, took about 22 minutes about 6.8 frames a second. The updated version, a 640 x 480 QT MPEG4 mov file [15 Frame] took about 20 minutes from the same Vegas project file -- I rendered it out of the project file as a "new master".... BTW thanks for the reminder why extracting audio from the raw MS AVIs is required. I had not done it in the first render and it was pretty obvious the spoken words and the audio track where not where they needed to be... though it might be used to pretty funny effect if one were "simulating" a Hong Kong Action film. joel

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

the_nomad — GMT

Quick note - this is very similar to the workflow we used for BloodSpell, with one difference: I tend to export from Final Cut Pro (in our case) at native resolution, just as Overman does, but then I perform any resizes needed using VirtualDub's (www.virtualdub.org) resize filters using the Lacroz3 method, which seems to produce the best resize quality of anything I've tried. Normally this doesn't mean yet another intermediate step. If you're running a DivX, you can do that directly through VDub, and if you're producing Flash you can run straight from a VirtualDub frameserver - it's only if you're using Quicktime that it'll not recognise VirtualDub's frameserving and you'll have to run off a new uncompressed version at the target resolution. (WTF is a frameserver? It's a little program that runs a live edit on a piece of video and then "pretends" that the converted video is a file on your system somewhere - great time and space saver. See http://www.virtualdub.org/docs_frameserver.html) (Note that FFMPEG WILL read the VDub frameserver - so you can convert to H.264 using a tool like Super, if you prefer) BTW - when we say "uncompressed", my usual codec is HuffYUV - mathmatically lossless and about 1/4 the size of raw uncompressed video. Sadly, Quicktime won't read that, so you'll need to convert via raw uncompressed video if you ever need to go through Quicktime Pro.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

RiViT — GMT

gishzida wrote:

The problem I'm dealing with is that it's a P4 system and the "large Drive" is a 500 gB external USB device formatted to FAT32... I'd move the contents elsewhere and format it NTFS but I don't have enough space available to move everything,,, As it is I just had to Clone my main drive from an 80 gB drive to a 120 gB drive...

Unless there's a restriction to working with external USB drivers I'm not aware of, you can convert any FAT-32 partition/drive to NTFS using Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Drive Management. Just Google "convert fat32 to ntfs" and you'll get lots of guidance. And none of these procedures necessitate moving data. Just do a back-up first if you want to feel safe.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

RiViT wrote:

Unless there's a restriction to working with external USB drivers I'm not aware of, you can convert any FAT-32 partition/drive to NTFS using Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Drive Management. Just Google "convert fat32 to ntfs" and you'll get lots of guidance. And none of these procedures necessitate moving data. Just do a back-up first if you want to feel safe.

I had thought that Fat32 conversion was in Computer Management > Disk Management too but it seems that Microsoft, in its wisdom, has removed that functionality from the Disk Management snap-in... so its back to the command line. Doing a de-frag first to get files arranged along proper cluster boundaries...

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

gishzida wrote:

so its back to the command line. Doing a de-frag first to get files arranged along proper cluster boundaries...

In Vista (or XP), you can use the "CONVERT" command-line utility to transform an existing drive. Try convert /? for options. (Of course reiterating that a backup first is the safest approach)

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Yes WinXP has the same utility... They removed the convert code from Disk Management with the release of Win2K because after all nobody needs FAT32 except portable devices that might get connected to that other operating system that a certain California Computer and Entertainment Appliance company sells... So what better way to prevent interoperability than to force users to use NTFS.... Because after all Redmond knows best... but I do this kinda stuff for a living [I maintain a 60 some odd mixed server network] I'm naturally doing it without the safety net... :-) Had to dismount the drive but otherwise all is well: Conversion complete... and patches are now loading to MS... Now completed and loading my movie... So that much is done... now all I need to do is clean up the scenes and re-render everything then pull it into Vegas and try the Raw Render.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

gishzida — GMT

Got a render time for an uncompressed version of "Imaginary Skies" : about 24:10 minutes on a P4 with 2 Gb for a 6:02 minute movie.... which makes for Render time = 4 X [Length of Movie] With the times you posted it proves "More Cores Is Better! [tm]" The final files size [using Sony's YUV] was 15.6 Gb... Yikes! What was that compression codec for lossless? Still working on a third edit hope to have that done this week-end and begin the framing for my "Xmas Gift" joel

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

saument — GMT

Thanks so much for this thread. It's been very helpful as I try to get my hands around this process and the flood of formats and codecs that I'm swimming in.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

AngriBuddhist — GMT

Since it seems as if quite of you use Sony Vegas, I decided to get the trial version of it. Once I got it installed, cracked it open, and saw how much more professional it looked compared to Movie Maker, I got excited. 25 minutes later and I still can't get it to recognize the direct renders from MS. Trying to open them gets me a "Stream attributes could not be determined". However, VMS will read the Movie Maker version of those files. Is there a codec that I need to get VMS to read MS's .avi files? Edit: Yes, I'm checking the VMS forums and am coming up with "nada" so far.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

The K-Lite Codec Pack seems to do the trick: http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

zuckerman — GMT

I'd like to nominate Overman to receive the 5,000 MS Points Award for this thread. Also, I'd like to second that nomination.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

AngriBuddhist — GMT

Thank you very much Overman. That did the trick. I have shown your movies to my girlfriend to explain why it is that I've been falling asleep on my keyboard. They are clever and show some real technical excellence. I still have a few questions about VMS though. As MS outputs at 25fps should I be adjusting VMS to do the same? It appears that VMS doesn't rip the audio from the files. Do I need to run the dialogue through MS to get the lipsync and then add the dialogue in post production? As of now, I don't plan on using MS for audio so this wouldn't be a hassle. Thanks.

Re:Overman's Moviestorm Render Workflow

Overman — GMT

Glad to help! While MS only outputs at 25fps, yes I would definitely set your editor to render out at that same framerate. It'll not only be best for quality to keep them the same, but will also greatly improve your render speeds out of Vegas if it doesn't have to try to interpolate any extra frames. The sound is in the MS video, but yeah, Vegas (even the Pro version) doesn't recognize it for me. I use Goldwave (www.goldwave.com, friendly shareware) to open the video file and then save the audio track. Revdoug found a utility I haven't tried but is reported to get the same job done: http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/forum/posts/list/1153.page Like you, I don't plan to use Moviestorm's audio as any kind of final... but it's definitely helpful to have that "scratch track" versus trying to visually line things up with the lipsync.