Best render settings: png image sequence @ 30 fps?

prairiedogpics wrote on 1/17/2015, 6:00 PM
Hi All,
I'm so used to HDV I can't seem to wrap my head around this...
My son is doing a school project, which involves creating a 3D animated sequence using Blender.
He exported the entire sequence in 1920 x 1080 .png files (at my suggestion) for best quality.
Now he has imported the .png sequence into Vegas 10 and I'm not sure what are the best project settings which is the best render choice out of Vegas.
He needs the final render to be 30 fps, since his animating was done at that frame speed.
He's looking for best quality at the smallest file size; 720p output is probably okay...
What throws me is I can only find 29.970 (NTSC) for 1080p when we import the render sequence?...Is that what I should choose? Why isn't there a 30 fps choice (progressive)...
Obviously, I'm only a hobbyist!

Comments

john_dennis wrote on 1/17/2015, 6:47 PM
Since your input consists of a folder of stills, the difference between what you would experience at 30 fps and 29.97 fps makes virtually no difference at all. I'll forego that discussion though there have been discussions on the forum.

The render settings depends on how he plans to deliver the video. Please advise:

Set project properties to 1920 x 1080 - 29.97 Progressive.


In Vegas Pro 10, you could render using the Sony AVC/MVC render template. Use this customization:


Set the bit rate to suit your requirements.

Or you could use the Mainconcept AVC/AAC render template:


NormanPCN wrote on 1/17/2015, 6:49 PM
30fps may not be in the drop down list but you can enter any frame rate you want into that field.
Project settings,
Import image sequence,
Render as templates
prairiedogpics wrote on 1/19/2015, 8:20 AM
Thanks for the replies.
We played around with this last night and found a couple things...
- for some reason Vegas 10 does not like it if you manually enter "30" as the fps (it threw an error, which I don't recall at the moment). Had to therefore settle on 29.97 fps.
- The biggest improvement, visually, came from disabling smart resample for the imported sequence. Before doing that the motion blur was horrendous.
Thx again!
Chienworks wrote on 1/19/2015, 9:14 AM
If it was me, i'd do the project at 29.97 and import the image sequence at 29.97. That way you have a 1:1 frame match so no resampling should happen. The difference in speed and time for the video will be so tiny as to be completely unnoticeable.

The other benefit is that if you are playing this back on any sort of TV or burning to DVD, the TV will expect 29.97 and not 30.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/19/2015, 1:51 PM
Blender can export to any FPS you want, even 29.97. It's just a frame count / time math.

I've done 30fps image sequence capture, edit & render in Vegas 10 so there so be no issues. You should be able to have everything @ 30fps progressive. I just tried and I can change the framerate of the image sequence to 30 & the project to 30 w/o issue.

IF you're exporting @ 1920x1080 from Blender though there's no reason to render lower, if you're rendering lower then just export from Blender at the desired resolution/settings. Blender should even support interlace export, last I remember.
john_dennis wrote on 1/19/2015, 2:07 PM
Still missing from this conversation is how the final video will be delivered or displayed. Projector, Blu-ray, played from a laptop or media player?

prairiedogpics wrote on 1/20/2015, 8:22 AM
Thanks all.
We did end up using 29.97 in Vegas, even though he exported from Blender @ 30 fps; the main reason for that was he was up against a deadline and didn't have time to re-export from Blender again. 1600 frames from Blender took about 7 hours at 1920 x 1080. (Side note: because of the slight incompatibility between Minecraft's world export and its import into Blender, Blender was unable to use the CUDA abilities for it's render and had to rely solely on the CPU...)

Everyone is paperless in his school district, so the intended playback hardware is iPads and/or YouTube.

We rendered the project in Vegas to "Internet 1920x1080 30 fps" (29.97) using Sony AVC for use in YouTube (also disabled smart resample).
I also rendered it to an .m2t file, renamed it to an .m2ts file, and then brought that into ArcSoft Media Converter 8 and rendered to iPad and iPhone 5 compatible .mp4 files so he could have a the actual files on his iPad/iPhone in case accessing YouTube from school was a problem. (Arcsoft's software won't accept an .m2t file, but will accept .m2ts files...go figure.) Arcsoft's Media Converter is really convenient and fast since it uses the Intel Quick Sync Video, which is built into my core i7 processor and has many user friendly presets...

Here is a link to the final product, which he will turn in today:



I learned a lot with this project!
john_dennis wrote on 1/20/2015, 8:59 AM
Works for me.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/20/2015, 9:52 PM
Cool looking. Quick question though: any reason you couldn't do all that flying around & what not in Minecraft & record that to a video file using a capture program?
prairiedogpics wrote on 1/21/2015, 4:56 PM
@TheHappyFriar:

Two part answer:
- He needed (wanted) to show animated characters in the fly-through and it's not possible in Minecraft to do a tour and show characters doing rehearsed movements at the same time; i.e., Minecraft is very much a first-person view.

- I did tell him that doing a real-time capture of a first-person walk through would be very valuable in that he could show much more detail in the Minecraft world, but we ran out of time trying to find an inexpensive capture program....I tried the free Expression Excoder from MS, but it was a little clunky...There is FRAPS, which is widely used for recording video game sessions, but I didn't want to plunk down $37 for a program we may only use once.

Any suggestions for a VERY inexpensive and small footprint (CPU-wise) capture program?

(P.S. If you want to see well-made captures of Minecraft gameplay, search for Paul Soares Jr. on YouTube; most of his stuff was recorded with FRAPS and edited in PS Elements)