I'm planning to start working on an animation whenever I get my copy of Rhino (which is what will probably be used for more complex modeling parts) which is going to be about 3:30 minutes long because thats how long the soundtrack is. I was planning to use no aa and 60 fps. Do these settings seem alright, and does anyone have any suggestions for these or other settings so that my rendertime is not years and years?

Well, it kinda depends on what the video is for. If you're going to be using some type of compression for video, then 60 could work, since video is actually 2 frames for every one frame of video (since two frames are interlaced into one frame, don't ask me why), so having twice as many frames would simulate real video. Although, to be honest, it's not really a noticable difference between 30 and 60. Actually, with video, it's not 30 frames per second, it's 29.997, but that's kinda too small to care about, if you ask me, and I don't think anyone has every really cared. And if it's for the internet, I don't think people would like you if they had to download 60 frames for every 1 second of video. We would stone you repeatedly with small pebbles. If you wish for it too look like a movie though, you should just render it at 24 frames per second, the industry standard. So generally, I stay at 30.

Aren't movie (films) 24 frames a second? And animations (cartoon) at 24, but double shot of each frame? I'd suggest a 5 second test at various frame rate to judge how different it actually is in the real world. What size were you thinking? I created a movie 500 wide and 115 frames and even compressing it to MPG was still 8 meg.

Ok, I just got back on because I couldn't fall asleep. I did do the tests you are talking about with 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45, and 60 frames per second with some basic model animations and camera movement. I did notice some difference in the smoothness between 30 and 60 frames, but its not very noticable. Thank you both very much for the advice(spelling? I'm really tired), you've convinced me to go with 30 fps instead of 60. Plus, this halves my file size and render time :). Just incase you were wondering, the video is for the internet. I hope to make a sequel or maybe even a series if the first one isn't terrible and doesn't take terribly long. Wow I am tired, I need some sleep.

Oh, btw, any suggestions on rendering options, I was planning on leaving everything on default but eliminating anti-aliasing. How does this sound? Any other adjustments I should make? Is no aa that noticably different from default aa in animation? (from what I've tested I don't think so, but I would like more opinions)

Oh, for the size, I'm not sure. I don't want it to be too small so I can show more detail and action and stuff, but I haven't decided actual size yet. I'm thinking about doing it in widescreen, but I'm not sure. I hope the file size isn't too large to shy people away from it (that's what my crappy modelling and animation skills are for, lol). Maybe I should have smaller sizes available, or even break it into smaller pieces, but then that might be weird because it would break up the soundtrack, but it might not be that bad.

I always turn of AA for animatinos, since the compression wipes it out anyway.

If it's just for a demo reel, or for internet use, I'd say leave AA off. But with more advanced codecs out there Div-x, for example), using AA can dramtically increase the clarity of your movies. And, in the "industry", everyone uses 29.97. It's not too difficult to convert to with After Effects, which is something you almost NEED to edit animation effectively. (now for the stone-throwing!) But 3:30 is a LOT of video! I hope you let us see at least a portion of it, when you're done, and good luck to you!

Actually video is 29.97 for NTSC, I'd say go with 30 fps or 25 fps is acceptable for web/PAL. I'd also say go with MPEG 2 compression as used for VCD and that way you can pin it to VCD or DVD at a later date. Resolution is dependent on target if you're going for VCD/DVD then take a look at the MIR site for image and Pixel ratios. If for web/PC only consider 320x240 or 480x320. Resolution is going to be one of the biggest driver of size. Also consider (as mentioned) DivX or Sorrensen Spark compression.

drawbridgep: Actually, may I suggest leaving it on for animations, at least, if it has a bunch of little windows as did your last. AA gets rid of the flickering glimmer, which doesn't really go away in compression (though it's a bear to render, yes)

SDL, I'm planning to show the whole movie on the internet. I hope by the time it is finished (if I finish it) that I'll have my own website up, so I can host the downloads there. I might also put in in the downloads on my Renderosity page if its not too large. I'll probably show portions or test animations of it throughout the creation to show my progress and get some feedback (to make sure it isn't completely horrible). I'm not sure how long it will take to finish. If I get my Rhino real soon and really focus then it could be done in a month. But it could take as long as a year, and if it takes very long, I might just scrap it, hopefully that won't happen. I hope to have it done in a few months, but I don't know how long the modelling and stuff will take, because I only have test models so far, and I'm not sure how many I will create yet.

WHat are you plannin on using Rhino for, in terms of animation, just out of curiosity? Sounds interesting, keep us posted on your progress!

I have something else to suggest. I would not recommend doing one continuous animation of 3:30 in length. Many people have had problems while rendering a Bryce ani of that length. Besides, if you break it up into different scenes or camera shots, it's more interesting and you run less risk of losing an animation file you've spent many hours(usually) rendering. I render all my animations initially as .bmp sequence files. They are easy to convert into an avi and then into DivX, and the folder the .bmp files go into will not be corrupted if your computer is interrupted while you are rendering, unlike avi or Quicktime files. Good luck to you, hope to see your finished result.

SDL, I'm going to use Bryce for the actual animation and for articulating the models, and I'm going to use Rhino for complex modelling. For example, the movie is set in a futuristic city, so I need cars and such, which although not easy, are probably easier in Rhino than Bryce. Currently I only have test pieces of the city, such roads, corners, sidewalks, columns, and walkways made. I don't even have any concepts for actual buildings yet, just the stuff in between. The final pieces will probably be modelled in Rhino. Danamo, I am going to render it as separate scenes. I'm going to separate the renders into each time the camera switches. Some renders will be longer than others, for example I know the opening shot will be about 14-15 seconds. Then I will make some adjustments such as cutting excess film and slight tinkering to go along with soundtrack more accurately, and the scenes will be combined into the movie with the soundtrack. Oh that reminds me, are there any good free movie editing programs so I can add like motion blur and stuff? Is there a demo version of AfterEffects or whatever it is that I could use?

I'll probably be posting various parts of the movie and test shots. For example, I know im going to post the opening shot sometime after I get it done, and I'll probably need feedback on some of my effects such as volumetric smoke and stuff in Bryce, and I'll probably post some animation samples to make sure they don't look too unnatural or anything like that. Waiting for my Rhino is killing me, I want to get some final modelling underway.

Alright, I'm not sure why I'm posting this in this thread since no one is going to look at it again, but whatever. For the cars in the city, I want to have wheels and rims and stuff, but I also want for flying cars for farther shots and some more animation and stuff. I had the idea of modelling the car bodies, and when cutting out the wheel wells, I could have a version with wheels and one with some sort boosters under the car, but having the rest of the body be the same. If anyone sees this, please let me know what you think of this idea. I don't know why I don't ask this later since modelling the cars is still probably many months away.

Your biggest bottleneck is going to be the Bryce render. Do you have a lot of disk space? If so I'd suggest you render AVI full frames uncompressed or bmp frames. I did a StarWars title scene for a cubscout awards night. The animation matched the StarWars Music which was 2min 31sec or something like that. The 640x480 30fps render was over 600meg! The point is the first render looked like crap because I chose too much compression. I had to wait 3 days to render again and it takes just as long because Bryce renders everything as bmp frames and strings it together at the last anyway. When I added sound in movie maker I tried several default mpg DivX and finally settled on a Quicktime format about 10mb. I chose this because the file was shown from a laptop and didn't have to download from the internet. If I was going to post I probably would use the mpg4 v2 that produced a 1.3mb file. If you use uncompressed you can always compress with whatever you are adding your sound with. If you use bmp frames you can even postwork effects onto the frames or layer titles.

sounds like quite an ambitious project! Im thinking this is gonna take weeks/months to render in Bryce (especially if you are thinking of volumetrics) but more power to you! Like it has been said when it comes to rendering, render out in bmp sequences which kinda sucks cause in every other program you can render out to tiff or tga which gives you an alpha channel (used for compositing and adding effects). Dont render to avi or quicktime cause you will have problems if you do large sequences. As far as editing you can get after effects/Premiere for a free 30 day trial. And I can see the idea for the car modeling idea but it might be tougher than you are imagining but I hope you have the patience for this cause it sounds like a fun project