I rendered a still image and it looks totally different than in the preview screen.  When I rendered the same file as a movie, the movie looked  like the preview screen?  I'm brand new with Poser and 3d, can anybody help me understand how the render works?  I'm mainly making a video and trying to make the models/figures look as realistic as possible.  

I thought that when you make a video, the steps would be to set up the scene, the character, the props, maybe do some adjustments in the material room, set up your lighting, make a still render and then use the animation controls to create the frames for the video.  

I was thinking the still render would let you know what would be rendered for the movie also. I'm thinking I was wrong?   

Have a look at the Make Movie dialog box.
It usually defaults to the preview renderer. Change it to "FireFly" and every frame of your movie will be rendered using your current FireFly settings.

Quote - Have a look at the Make Movie dialog box.
It usually defaults to the preview renderer. Change it to "FireFly" and every frame of your movie will be rendered using your current FireFly settings.

Wow, that drop down menu was invisible to me, I didn't notice it.  Thanks so much. 

You are best to render individual stills and then compost them using a video editor.

Directly rendering to a video format is a problem if the render hangs. You would have to start from the beginnig of the render sequence.

Rendering to picture files, you just pick up where you left off if there is a crash.

Quote - You are best to render individual stills and then compost them using a video editor.

Directly rendering to a video format is a problem if the render hangs. You would have to start from the beginnig of the render sequence.

Rendering to picture files, you just pick up where you left off if there is a crash.

I hear this a lot and I find it to generally be true.  It's nice to be able to resume rendering if there is a power outage or crash. 

That said, I have been working on a project for a client in which Poser's lost ability to save videos in Xvid has been greatly missed.  The animations each took about an hour to an hour and a half to render, not a big deal if I needed to render one over.  But the space requirement was mind boggling.  For example, one sequence contains 90 png frames @ 872kb each, or 76.5MB of data.  The animation file compressed with Xvid is only about 240k.  That means the entire animation is less than a third of the filesize of one single frame.

Also, you have to figure in the time spent converting each set of frames to an animation and then deleting the frames.  I'd say rendering to single frames is best when each frame takes a long time to render and/or if there is a need to post process them in another app.  When creating a lot of short sequences that need no frame-level post production, rendering clips can actually be a more efficient use of time and storage space.

Quote - You are best to render individual stills and then compost them using a video editor.

Directly rendering to a video format is a problem if the render hangs. You would have to start from the beginnig of the render sequence.

Rendering to picture files, you just pick up where you left off if there is a crash.

Thanks for the response.  I'm so new to this, how do you render individual stills?  Let's say you do a clip that has 3 or 4 hundred frames?  Is that in the render settings?  I notice in render settings/movie settings the formats available are image, ipod,ipad, android etc.  Would it be image?  If the goal is a video for a website, which way would you go?  Some web designers create several formats geared toward various browsers, is what you're talking about something that still allows that? 

Quote - > Quote - You are best to render individual stills and then compost them using a video editor.

Directly rendering to a video format is a problem if the render hangs. You would have to start from the beginnig of the render sequence.

Rendering to picture files, you just pick up where you left off if there is a crash.

I hear this a lot and I find it to generally be true.  It's nice to be able to resume rendering if there is a power outage or crash. 

That said, I have been working on a project for a client in which Poser's lost ability to save videos in Xvid has been greatly missed.  The animations each took about an hour to an hour and a half to render, not a big deal if I needed to render one over.  But the space requirement was mind boggling.  For example, one sequence contains 90 png frames @ 872kb each, or 76.5MB of data.  The animation file compressed with Xvid is only about 240k.  That means the entire animation is less than a third of the filesize of one single frame.

Also, you have to figure in the time spent converting each set of frames to an animation and then deleting the frames.  I'd say rendering to single frames is best when each frame takes a long time to render and/or if there is a need to post process them in another app.  When creating a lot of short sequences that need no frame-level post production, rendering clips can actually be a more efficient use of time and storage space.

This sounds pretty interesting, I'd like to look into this more.  Question about the png frames you mentioned, is that after rendering?  If so, that wouldn't give a realistic look right?  It's more cartoonish?  

Also, how do you do frame-level post production?  What programs and what sort of adjustments can be made? I guess I don't really know what it is...

There's a lot of others editing softwares out there.
Ya can use adobe premiere and adobe after effects for editing movies
photoshop's .psd

.jpg all purpose for any app and web.

Quote - This sounds pretty interesting, I'd like to look into this more.  Question about the png frames you mentioned, is that after rendering?  If so, that wouldn't give a realistic look right?  It's more cartoonish?  

Also, how do you do frame-level post production?  What programs and what sort of adjustments can be made? I guess I don't really know what it is...

Png is just another format Poser uses to save sequential frames, like jpg.

When I said frame level, I just meant compositing, or color effects you'd do on a timeline...  It's best to not think about all of the adjustments that can be made until you know the one you are looking for ;)  So many options...

Thanks for all the info!

The best thing to do is to have a hard drive dedicated to storing the renders. Yes, when you do frame rendering, you have lots of frames; thing is, you still have this when you render to video. They are just stored in a pseudo temp file, then compiled after completion into the selected video format, then deleted ( this is the danger; if the render bombs for any reason, if you run out of scratch space on your system, if the power flickers enough to cause the OS to so much as hiccup, you lose all that was done, and have to restart the render from scratch). You want both enough space that running out of space won't be an issue, and a place to save projects until you archive them.

The frame level adjustments are limited to whatever image editor you use is limited to. If Paintshop Pro, those are your limits, If Photoshop, ditto. Say you finish a render and decide the color saturation is off. Take the first frame into your image editor, tweak it until it looks right, create a script that will apply those actions to all numbered images in that set, and let the macro do its thing.....being certain to save with a new name. You -never- alter the raw frames; those are your insurance policy. Once you have them, you can screw up edit after edit after effect and still go back, load the raws, and try again.

This may sound overly complex. And it is, indeed, adding several steps to the pipeline, and those steps are ones the pro's use. But each step adds safety, which saves times, which opens up time for other things. There are several non linear video editors out there as freeware; a simple google will find them (several are on sourceforge.net). The cheapest commercial version is probably Magix movie maker (whatever number they're up to); I use Premiere and After Effects CS4, and Particle illusion 3. You can find programs to fit any budget of degree of interest. And don't hesitate to ask; you can save yourself the bugs in the teeh that others got learning things the hard way.......  ;P  

Quote - The best thing to do is to have a hard drive dedicated to storing the renders. Yes, when you do frame rendering, you have lots of frames; thing is, you still have this when you render to video. They are just stored in a pseudo temp file, then compiled after completion into the selected video format, then deleted ( this is the danger; if the render bombs for any reason, if you run out of scratch space on your system, if the power flickers enough to cause the OS to so much as hiccup, you lose all that was done, and have to restart the render from scratch). You want both enough space that running out of space won't be an issue, and a place to save projects until you archive them.

The frame level adjustments are limited to whatever image editor you use is limited to. If Paintshop Pro, those are your limits, If Photoshop, ditto. Say you finish a render and decide the color saturation is off. Take the first frame into your image editor, tweak it until it looks right, create a script that will apply those actions to all numbered images in that set, and let the macro do its thing.....being certain to save with a new name. You -never- alter the raw frames; those are your insurance policy. Once you have them, you can screw up edit after edit after effect and still go back, load the raws, and try again.

This may sound overly complex. And it is, indeed, adding several steps to the pipeline, and those steps are ones the pro's use. But each step adds safety, which saves times, which opens up time for other things. There are several non linear video editors out there as freeware; a simple google will find them (several are on sourceforge.net). The cheapest commercial version is probably Magix movie maker (whatever number they're up to); I use Premiere and After Effects CS4, and Particle illusion 3. You can find programs to fit any budget of degree of interest. And don't hesitate to ask; you can save yourself the bugs in the teeh that others got learning things the hard way.......  ;P  

 

Thanks for the good info.  I'll be looking into the various editors out there.  I read over what you wrote a few times to try to understand it, I think I'm getting what you're talking about, makes a lot of sense.   I haven't looked yet so maybe I'll find it quickly but how do you specify a hard drive to store the renders?  Are you talking about external hard drive? 

Quote -  

Thanks for the good info.  I'll be looking into the various editors out there.  I read over what you wrote a few times to try to understand it, I think I'm getting what you're talking about, makes a lot of sense.   I haven't looked yet so maybe I'll find it quickly but how do you specify a hard drive to store the renders?  Are you talking about external hard drive? 

On my setup, I have both. I use the internal for storing active projects, and when I finish a sequence I back it up onto an external drive that stays powered down until I need it (I keep the graphics programs off the C: drive; in fact, the only things that should be on C: is the OS, the codecs you use, and any web plugins that -have- to be there. Otherwise, the cleaner you keep it, the smoother your system will run). Terabyte hard drives for desktop internal use are around $90. External drives depend; usually the cheapest solution (ultimately) is to buy a good USB external drive box (those average between $20 to $50, tend to be aluminum, and are reuseable if the drive dies) then shop for the drive to go in it (like right now, newegg is running a sale on a Seagate 3Terabyte SATA 3 drive for $119.00). The benefit of this is the empty frames can be opened, you can see any defects in manufacturing, they are self powered, so as long as you have access to an outlet, it won't kill your laptop if you are using it on one (laptops can be used, but rendering software will drive the heat through the roof. Only 3D games are harder on portables. They are great for setting things up, but a desktop you can build to handle the rough treatment. 

Actually specifying location is a function of the program. When you start the make movie process, you should get a dialog box that shows where Poser (or other progam) will save the output by default; almost certainly in my documents on C. Just back up until you see Computer, expand it so you see all your drives, select the drive you want, then the folder within that drive. Hit okay and away you go (assuming a windows box, of course. Not familiar with Mac, but the process is the same)  

Quote - > Quote -  

Thanks for the good info.  I'll be looking into the various editors out there.  I read over what you wrote a few times to try to understand it, I think I'm getting what you're talking about, makes a lot of sense.   I haven't looked yet so maybe I'll find it quickly but how do you specify a hard drive to store the renders?  Are you talking about external hard drive? 

On my setup, I have both. I use the internal for storing active projects, and when I finish a sequence I back it up onto an external drive that stays powered down until I need it (I keep the graphics programs off the C: drive; in fact, the only things that should be on C: is the OS, the codecs you use, and any web plugins that -have- to be there. Otherwise, the cleaner you keep it, the smoother your system will run). Terabyte hard drives for desktop internal use are around $90. External drives depend; usually the cheapest solution (ultimately) is to buy a good USB external drive box (those average between $20 to $50, tend to be aluminum, and are reuseable if the drive dies) then shop for the drive to go in it (like right now, newegg is running a sale on a Seagate 3Terabyte SATA 3 drive for $119.00). The benefit of this is the empty frames can be opened, you can see any defects in manufacturing, they are self powered, so as long as you have access to an outlet, it won't kill your laptop if you are using it on one (laptops can be used, but rendering software will drive the heat through the roof. Only 3D games are harder on portables. They are great for setting things up, but a desktop you can build to handle the rough treatment. 

Actually specifying location is a function of the program. When you start the make movie process, you should get a dialog box that shows where Poser (or other progam) will save the output by default; almost certainly in my documents on C. Just back up until you see Computer, expand it so you see all your drives, select the drive you want, then the folder within that drive. Hit okay and away you go (assuming a windows box, of course. Not familiar with Mac, but the process is the same)  

 

How could I forget that, yes the dialoge box before you hit make movie.   

As far as the internal use hard drives, I didn't think that would affect performance.  Isn't RAM for that?   So if you have alot of programs installed, just make sure they're not running while you're working?  

Quote - > Quote - > Quote -  

Thanks for the good info.  I'll be looking into the various editors out there.  I read over what you wrote a few times to try to understand it, I think I'm getting what you're talking about, makes a lot of sense.   I haven't looked yet so maybe I'll find it quickly but how do you specify a hard drive to store the renders?  Are you talking about external hard drive? 

On my setup, I have both. I use the internal for storing active projects, and when I finish a sequence I back it up onto an external drive that stays powered down until I need it (I keep the graphics programs off the C: drive; in fact, the only things that should be on C: is the OS, the codecs you use, and any web plugins that -have- to be there. Otherwise, the cleaner you keep it, the smoother your system will run). Terabyte hard drives for desktop internal use are around $90. External drives depend; usually the cheapest solution (ultimately) is to buy a good USB external drive box (those average between $20 to $50, tend to be aluminum, and are reuseable if the drive dies) then shop for the drive to go in it (like right now, newegg is running a sale on a Seagate 3Terabyte SATA 3 drive for $119.00). The benefit of this is the empty frames can be opened, you can see any defects in manufacturing, they are self powered, so as long as you have access to an outlet, it won't kill your laptop if you are using it on one (laptops can be used, but rendering software will drive the heat through the roof. Only 3D games are harder on portables. They are great for setting things up, but a desktop you can build to handle the rough treatment. 

Actually specifying location is a function of the program. When you start the make movie process, you should get a dialog box that shows where Poser (or other progam) will save the output by default; almost certainly in my documents on C. Just back up until you see Computer, expand it so you see all your drives, select the drive you want, then the folder within that drive. Hit okay and away you go (assuming a windows box, of course. Not familiar with Mac, but the process is the same)  

 

How could I forget that, yes the dialoge box before you hit make movie.   

As far as the internal use hard drives, I didn't think that would affect performance.  Isn't RAM for that?   So if you have alot of programs installed, just make sure they're not running while you're working?  

What are empty frames?  And defects in manufacturing? 

Quote - How could I forget that, yes the dialoge box before you hit make movie.   

As far as the internal use hard drives, I didn't think that would affect performance.  Isn't RAM for that?   So if you have alot of programs installed, just make sure they're not running while you're working?  

RAM -is- used for that; the more the better. But the OS still uses the swapfile on C, and the default is a dynamic swapfile that expands and contracts as the OS wills. The more real estate taken up on the platters with other things, the more the swap data gets shoved into whatever niche is available, and the longer it takes for the OS to do a read of same. With no additional programs on C, you don't run into the slowdown issues drive fragmentation will cause.

The way most renderers work is:

Load program in ram

load all content in ram

any scripts, shader language, etc.

Begin render in ram. If render components exceed available ram size, move completed components to temp storage on C (When you start talking about renders, depending on just how you set them up, you can be creating separate shadow maps for each light, doing ray bounce calculations that take a lot of space: this is all floating point math, so sometimes the values can get huge from a storage perspective. Photon mapping, literally dozens of potential layers to the finished product. We only simulate reality, and that involves a =lot= of cheating and tricks under the hood), then bring them back as space frees up so the final product can be assembled. The closer you get towards 'photorealistic', the complexity going on under the hood goes up by orders of magnitude.

And yeah, you do not want to try and run any other program while you render. Doing setup and keyframing is one things; nearly all those functions are still single threaded, so a multi core system would only be hitting one processor. It's rare to find renderers that are not multi threaded, and capable of eating you whole system's resources  and happily ask for more.

 Oh, the 'empty frames' refers to the external hard drive cases; some -look- sexy on the outside, but inside are pretty much garbage (circuit boards glued down with rubber cement, hair thin wires from the connectors, things like that. And if it is a cheap company, you get defects like no mounting posts for the hard drive,  or they send an old IDE drive frame when you ordered a SATA. You always open your goodies, give a good inspection, and if you find flaws, get a return number and get it back and get what you ordered. If you can build your own, check out pricewatch.com. You can find a lot of stuff you never thought existed. It's not a business, but a clearing site to redirect you to a business site.

Quote - > Quote - How could I forget that, yes the dialoge box before you hit make movie.   

As far as the internal use hard drives, I didn't think that would affect performance.  Isn't RAM for that?   So if you have alot of programs installed, just make sure they're not running while you're working?  

RAM -is- used for that; the more the better. But the OS still uses the swapfile on C, and the default is a dynamic swapfile that expands and contracts as the OS wills. The more real estate taken up on the platters with other things, the more the swap data gets shoved into whatever niche is available, and the longer it takes for the OS to do a read of same. With no additional programs on C, you don't run into the slowdown issues drive fragmentation will cause.

The way most renderers work is:

Load program in ram

load all content in ram

any scripts, shader language, etc.

Begin render in ram. If render components exceed available ram size, move completed components to temp storage on C (When you start talking about renders, depending on just how you set them up, you can be creating separate shadow maps for each light, doing ray bounce calculations that take a lot of space: this is all floating point math, so sometimes the values can get huge from a storage perspective. Photon mapping, literally dozens of potential layers to the finished product. We only simulate reality, and that involves a =lot= of cheating and tricks under the hood), then bring them back as space frees up so the final product can be assembled. The closer you get towards 'photorealistic', the complexity going on under the hood goes up by orders of magnitude.

And yeah, you do not want to try and run any other program while you render. Doing setup and keyframing is one things; nearly all those functions are still single threaded, so a multi core system would only be hitting one processor. It's rare to find renderers that are not multi threaded, and capable of eating you whole system's resources  and happily ask for more.

 

 Oh, the 'empty frames' refers to the external hard drive cases; some -look- sexy on the outside, but inside are pretty much garbage (circuit boards glued down with rubber cement, hair thin wires from the connectors, things like that. And if it is a cheap company, you get defects like no mounting posts for the hard drive,  or they send an old IDE drive frame when you ordered a SATA. You always open your goodies, give a good inspection, and if you find flaws, get a return number and get it back and get what you ordered. If you can build your own, check out pricewatch.com. You can find a lot of stuff you never thought existed. It's not a business, but a clearing site to redirect you to a business site.

 

 

 

 

Awesome explanation, seems like really important stuff to know.  It sounds like it's best to have a machine solely for working in poser.  Or is the idea to set up your machine so other programs and files are not on the C drive?  And then move Poser work over to the externals to keep the C drive clean?