Converting animated render to better quality
icouldbe65
Posts: 11
in The Commons
Not sure how title this, but is there way to render animation in low-res (640x480) then have an application that can take it to hi-res quality and still be clear? Ive been playing with shotcut, but didnt know if there is anything out there that will also work with low render animations.
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I never heard of increasing film size. i from lower resolution , its better to render at Higher resolution and reduce film size for clarity, but doing it the other way around i believe would make the fim more graining less clear
I render my animations at 1920 x 1080 and use a 1080 hd mp4 out put in Adobe premiere for my animations
I did this 2 minute animation in 5 days with daz 12 beta , I was achieving around 12 - to 14 seconds a key frames @1080hd with around 16000 keyframes all in custom hand keyframed animation with dragon3 and mill sub dragon.
click pic to play animation
Also look at Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI. It can scale up images quite nicely.
Why 640x480?
If you upscale it 3 times, it will give you 1920x1440 resolution.
I think it will be better to start with 640x360 and upscale it 3 times, to get Full HD (1920x1080).
I have just tested the one figure render - https://www.daz3d.com/storybook-rabbit-for-genesis-8-female
and it takes 25 seconds to render in iray single frame on my computer at the resolution of 640x360.
That means 2 minutes of animation of such figure with 30 frames per second would take 24 hours of rendering.
Thanks, I will not do it.
In Unity, I could render in Full HD resolution in real time, so I will stick to that.
@Artini
Have you tried the new daz 4.12 beta. it renders about 5x faster than daz 4.11 its pretty impressive at the render times , wheni rendered dragons I never had a scene that took over 60 interations with the built in denoiser, you can get 12 seconds a crisp clean scene. using 4k HDRi, i used flipmodes because they fit my style of renders . but if ou have not tried daz 4.12 you might want to
I guess I am a little confused to why would anyone even want to render animation at such a low pixel size in the first place? I could see it if its for embedding into a website and your trying to reduce the footprint size of the file. even the smallest HD size is 1280x720, and any film the standard size is 16.9 & it really does not take that much longer to render 16.9HD size pixels, so I guess that is why I am confused why anyone would bother render such a small render size and try to enlarge it . it seems like its kind of going backwards adding more work to a animation than is really necessary. So maybe someone can enlighten me why the small render size for animation?
Hi, thanks for the tips.
No, I have not tried DS 4.12 beta yet.
I am still debating if I can resign with DS 4.10, so now I have DS 4.10 and DS 4.11 beta installed.
I would be extremely happy, if I could keep DS 4.10 and install DS 4.11 and DS 4.12 beta on the same computer.
One can always dream of such possibility...
Virtualdub warp resize filter pretty good too, I sometimes render camera matching backgrounds for composition in Hitfilm low res and blur them a bit with fake depth of field.You then overlay your alpha channel image series of the foreground
its possible to keep as many copies of daz as you like as long as daz software development is off the daz 4.5 SDK, the appdata folders don't change much so you can make keep copies of the previous versions of daz I have like 6 copies of different daz studios ,just create a folder in the daz3d of the program folder,. name it the version daz studio your saving and then copy and paste that version of daz into that new folder you created, make sure to include plugin folder . Bingo, bango done
Should work a like a charm until daz changes daz4.5 Standard development Kit or change something in the appdate Daz folders other wise the new updates just get added to the daz3d app data folder, so it is possiable to keep older copies of whatever version, daz4 with new versions if its based off the 4.5sdk
works for me anyway User beware though
Oh, Ivy. If it will work for me too... Have to try.
When I render in iRay, and I'm just trying to learn, I'm only rendering 30 iterations at 1280x720 at 30 fps. I could reduce the frame rates to PAL and cinema speeds of 24FPS to save more render time. It's pretty noisy but acceptable in my book having grown up watching 480i with lots of snow on very small TVs. I hope by next year I'll have a new faster PC but it still won't have an nVidia video card.
However for now, on wolf359's advice, as I try to learn and in production of future new animations, I have started using iRay materials but 'Basic OpenGL' (Intermediate OpenGL doesn't work on my PC) rendering to very quickly test my animation attempts. I will only do the final iRay render of frames when I'm satisfied with the animation. I use virtualDub and change the frame rate to 24 or 30 using the Basic OpenGL frame renders as a quick test to iterate & correct the animation over & over (and I need too, it's difficult!).
For upscaling you should upscale the frames before they are converted to an movie converting to a movie will add compression lossiness. Just search for how to batch upscale (and possible apply filters too if you like) images in a search engine using GIMP, PS, PS Elements, ImageMagick, and others. I am going to use Bender 2.8+ to composite & add a soundtrack it's the only capable SW that can do that that I can afford but I'm not that far advanced yet.
Where can you get daz4.12 beta? I am using 4.11 beta now.
you can purchase it for free, you just have to remember its a beta version so there maybe a few bugs, But it is a trial version after all and the support teams welcomes tickets on any bugs you find
Forum thread for daz 4.12 beta https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/341006/daz-studio-pro-beta-version-4-12-0-47-updated
Buy 4,12 for free here https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-beta
Ivy, what is your graphic card? I was under the impression that you need to have the latest nVidia RTX cards to truly get rendering speed improvements with the new beta.
See the blog from Nvidia: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/08/05/daz-studio-nvidia-rtx/
Regarding movie aspect ratio, most major films are still produced with a panoramic ratio of 2.35-1. Few movie directors are filming in the 16x9 format which is mostly used for television, Spielberg being a huge 16x9 fan. I have made a few tests with different ratios and found that I like somethig like 1920x900 which is in between 2.35 and 16x9. I prefer to have a more horizontal image and I save a bit of rentering time as a bonus. But that is personal taste.
Wow, I did not know, that there are such differences.
I have 2- evga gtx 1080ti's and yes I can get render times at little at 12 seconds a frame , I am rendering a Karate girl animtion right now with daz 4.12 beta and are getting times between 12 -18 seconds a frames and they all are nice clean at 1080hd
one of my secrets is to render each scene first and convert it to a HDRi in photoshop, then use it as my background. doing it that way I havemore control over lighting , more control of shodow placement. and feet never dip below the floor with custom HDRi
Below is a scene test render from my new Karate girl and the 5th chamber of the Shaolin animation I am working on, it This scene frame took 14 seconds to render at 1080hd with 4HD genesis8 characters my animations have improved 10x since the release of daz 4.12.
I just finished a new scene in this Karate girl animation scene18-5seconds to be exact. and i was hitting 11 seconds per frame in this scene build with my render rig set up. clean and crisp no graininess completely HD
I used 90 iterations at 1920x1080 dpi @160 png keyframes or 5.3 seconds of film, & the animated scene took less than 20 minutes to complete
this is the capture from this scene being tested. I use 2 monitors for animation so that is why the split screen. I was also using deforce modifier for the Karate girls pony tail.
technical information- I have 2-evga 1080ti at 11.9 gig of vram each in a external gpu cooling box and i use a gtx 970sc to run my monitors on a old fashion i7 3.33 ghz intel processor things are looking up with daz :)
Hi, Ivy.
Could you please share your knowledge, and explain how did you convert your renders to HDRi:
..."one of my secrets is to render each scene first and convert it to a HDRi in photoshop, then use it as my background..."
That is what I failed, so far. I have created a lot of nice 360 degree panorams, but failed to get light from them.
As usual your posts are very interesting and inspiring to do further experiments.
Wow, I didn't even know these existed.
I will also have a close look at your background first technique. I didn't realized that the Draw Ground option in Iray was procing shadows. But I guess the camera must be fixed for this to work.
Thanks for the info
when daz 4.12 is released as a full public release version I plan on doing another webinar( first one intro to daz animation https://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio--getting-started-with-animation) for the improved rendering in animation with daz 4.12 and plus how to use the ik-chains and deforce modifiers with the new timeline
I render my scene back ground first and save them as PNG and then I use Photoshop cs 5.5 3d to change them from png to HDRi and add a light source layer to them in Photoshop then save and use them as hdri back grounds in the render settings as a environment map'
How to convert images to high dynamic range image follow this instruction on Adobe.com and then place them in the daz render settings as a environment map that is all i do
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/high-dynamic-range-images.html
alternitive for creating hdr@ HDRLABS.COM
http://www.hdrlabs.com/tutorials/index.htM
you properly will have to buy the 1080ti's on amazom now because evga does not sell them on their site anymore. Mine are founders edition and i bought them right from EVGA i bought the black edtion first and returned them because i could not over clock them. so for a few hundred more it was worth getting the founders edition
the external gpu cooling box can be bought at best buy that is where i got mine its connects using USB3.0 super hub with HDMI output cables , data clock speed is as fast as my SSD can take the data which is around 300mbs, its comparable to being connected directly to the mother board with PCI3.0 at much coolers temps. I use a 1250 watt evga power supply to drive everything and use a older gtx 970 superclock to run my 2 32' Samsung Scarlett monitors
+1
Gigapixel is the best "up-rezer" I've ever seen.
Thanks a lot for the description of your workflow of creating HDRIs in Photoshop.
your welcome.
here is a cute animation i did it took about 4 weeks to do it has 32 scenes . i did it in daz 4.11 though & not 4.12 which renders much faster
Ivy do you know it's possible to create HDRi's with gimp? I am not a fan of using software that requires an active network connection like photoshop. Do you render with obects placed in the scene with the character if they will be bewteen the the character and the camera?
No I am sorry I never have worked with gimp so I have no idea what its capable of saving or exporting your images as . can gimp save in RAW files?does it work in layers? does it have dynamic filtering?
Greg Ward has a excellent tutorial on making and encoding hdr's http://www.anyhere.com/gward/hdrenc/Encodings.pdf He describes in depth the in's and outs of hdr's, As for my self to use them for animation use I make single pane 2k images I start by rendering them as 3840 x 2160 16.9, saved as a png or .tif file. i don't need 4k panoramic images because my camera angles are only needed in one directions and then i set my gamma light source in a new layer in Photoshop . set the light direction & colors that is needed in the new layer resave as a 32byte .raw file and reload it back into Photoshop as a 32bit raw file. change the .raw codex to hdri under the filter setting and then in the layer editor you can change or make adjustments to your gemma , takes like 3 minutes to do a single pane image , if i need more advance hdr I will load it into Nix hdr efex pro2 ( https://nikcollection.dxo.com/hdr-efex-pro/) to refine the changes needed, when google had nix collection I got mine free i think they charge for it now.
if you are stitching images together it may take a little longer . I been working with Photoshop a long time so thats why I use it. one thing i can tell you 32bite images give you much better results and some software will only accept 32 bite images .
when done place the hdr image as a environment map under the render settings . set as a finite box for a single pane 2k image hdr then render my image in my animation at 1920x1080 @16.9 30kfps I can adjust the light as need under the daz render setting tone settings , there are a few steps that you need to take. I render my images with out characters or props in them just bas a scene file first and place characters and props as needed once i have the hdr in place so i can gain effects from the light bounce to create matching shadows
Thanks Ivy, you have such a wealth of knowledge. I have gotten your advice many times in the forums so you may remember that I do mostly singing performances that I convert from MMD. Since I do animations I am always looking for ways to manage GPU memory. I do mostly indoor scenes like in Jazz clubs, theaters or concert stages. So, the issue is that the main character(s) are in the middle on the scene, on stage, with the stage backdrop,lights and maybe back up singers or instruments (piano, drum set...) behind them. I that type of scenario I guess there is no practical way to incorporate a render time saving HDRi. I also have attempted to incorporate lighting effects which is not that big a deal with just back ground lights. I can simply parent a point light to a simple primative with a lense flare texture and use translucency cut off settings (fakes a glow effect), use ies profile on mesh lighting. Mcasual made a texture animating script that allows keying of any texture change so I can get flashing led light strings or stage inlay led lighting. The big lighting issue is tring to get the light cones with haze or atmosphere effect. I usually can get this effect best with Atmocam but it takes forever to render. Lastly there is usually some kind of audience in the foreground which I'm sure could be handled with masking. So with all of that going on do you have any ideas do you know how it would be possible to incorporate layering?
Hi Kwannie , I remember watching some of your cute dance animations I always thought you did them with Anime studio
your club stage project you describe might be easier on computer & gpu resources if you a pre-render the back ground and save your camera POV as a preset and placed pre-rendered back ground in the environments tab instead of using it as a hdr. , that way you can use the daz native lighting found under the render setting to light your scene,which will save tons on gpu resources more than hdr's will & you can still get a solid shadow on the floor, just use your POV camera preset to match your background you renders , you might try to add a photometric spot light or 2 to your dance stage that you can animate the spot on the timeline to flash and move about like in a real club. if you want to add some cheap FX . I would recommend rendering your backgrounds the same size your rendering your film though to keep things in prospective .
make sure to share your results :)