Hello Everybody: I know that the forum is composed by hobbyists and profesionals alike so I wanted to ask for some advice. I want to make animations for TV, using Carrara and Final Cut Pro. What forum/webpage or book would you recomend? so I can start learning abou technical stuff like: Output resolutions . I thought I had to output to 640 by 480, but then I learned that TV has an other aspect like 720 x something... Frames per second, (30 or 29.97something)? Interlaced or not interlaced. I have some knowledge of video editing but what I would like to learn is what settings to use in Carrara(Image size, fps) so I can get my animations into Final Cut, and finally to TV (be it either DVD, VHS or Broadcast) I'd apreciate any pointers or how-to-books reference, or something. Thanks in advance!

We've had a few threads in the forum covering this kind of topic. One of the conclusions that has been drawn is that every orgainzation does this kind of stuff a little bit differently than most others. From this you can conclude that there are many ways to skin this cat. I would suggest (in addition to whatever else other people post) that you do some serious study and research into the software you have and perform some test animations to get yourself familiar with the technical terms, challenges and options. I've threatened to make some final decisions on my Tie Fighter project and I'm still wallowing around in despair! I'll toss this question out to the mods and see what they think. If I hear something useful, I'll post here. -Kix

-Kix

Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/pdfs/ps_to_pre.pdf

Thanks. Here's what I found, so far... Adobe has just announced premiere 6.5 and there's a very useful document in PDF with some of the answers that I was looking for. We'll it's a start.. It talks about standard TV resolutions and using Photoshop stills, but I can get some info from that, since I was thinking in incorporating PSDd into the project, anyway I guess you are right and I should experiment. I'll have to try the interlaced video option and see what I get... Sincerely, FJV

You know, the Final Cut Pro manuals are actually pretty helpful... ;)

I have a friend who makes video animations from Lightwave. He suggested using "motion jpeg B" as a compression type, and I think this applies to Carrara also. I tried it once and it seems to work well. Make sure you set this compression type before rendering. Hope this helps : )

Attached Link: http://www.creativecow.net

I've been using RayDream Studio to produce TV resolution animations for work for years. (We've ordered but not yet received C2.) Here's a bit of info. First check out the link for help with Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, and the Adobe AfterEffects forum is really helpful, too. The folks who hang out there are pros, but usually very helpful for beginners, too. Resolution: it's a sticky question. Much of it depends on what format you're digitizing (or transfering) from and to. The nice thing about Premiere is that it automatically detects what resolution your original material is and converts it to whatever resolution you're working in. 640 x 480 is correct for square-pixel NTSC (the US standard) television. Square pixels are used in non-DV format video and are also output from packages like Photoshop and Paintshop pro. DV Resolution varies, as well. If you have a mini-DV camera or a Digital-8 camera, your pixel size is 720x480. DV Cam Pro is 720x486. These use rectangular pixels, resulting in the same aspect ratio as 640x480 (that is the screen or image is the same rectangular shape in both resolutions). If you're editing material that's come from DV, it's going to be in the 720 range. If it comes from Betacam or VHS, it'll be 640, depending on how your video card digitizes the material. Frame Rate: NTSC is 29.97 frames per second. You can output from Carrara or RDS or whatever at 30 FPS and Premiere (and I suspect FCP, though I can't say for certain) will convert the frame rate for you. When I output animations from RDS (or AfterEffects, for that matter), I do them at 640x480, 30 FPS. Premiere will convert them to the resolution of the project I'm working on. If my live material came from DV, it'll stretch the image appropriately to fit the screen. I've never seen any artifacting in the images as a result of this stretching. Likewise, when I'm producing animations for use in the Media 100 (which works at 640x480 resolution), the 640 resolution of my animations works perfectly. Both software packages will convert the frame rate from 30 FPS to 29.97. I just find it easier to calculate motions in 30 FPS. One other note; when doing the animations, I don't compress them at all. Yes, this makes for huge files, but compression will inherently degrade the image. When converting to DV, there's a compression that occurs, and when using the Media 100 (or FCP) there'll be a different compression. But the best bet in my opinion is to start with an uncompressed animation for the highest quality possible. Long winded answer. I hope it's helpful. If you have any other questions, I usually check in here every few days. - Dex

Thank you very much Dex. VERY useful info. I used to use Premiere a long time ago. But software keeps getting more complicated with each version , more and more option ,ja! and less time to learn it... I remember when you could just start using it and leave the manual in the box and figure everything by yourself The new version look pretty good. Is Premiere your choice of software?

I use Premiere for my editing at home, if for no reason other than that it came bundled with my computer. But it is very powerful. At work I hop between Premiere and Media 100. Both are able to do pretty much anything I need to get done. Premiere 6.0 is pretty amazing; it has lots of the features of early versions of AfterEffects, so you're right -- it's getting really complex. If you're looking for an editing solution that's affordable and flexible, Premiere is great. If you're already familiar with Adobe products -- Photoshop, Illustrator, AfterEffects, PageMaker -- you'll find it pretty easy to jump into the Premiere interface. It's pretty straight forward. If you get the LE version of Premiere you pretty much can just jump in without reading the manual. There's lots to learn that you won't catch on your own, but you'll do pretty well.

wow this is great... I've been looking into doing this kinda thing but haven't had time to learn everything and what little time i have tried i just got frustrated.... Now i'm thinking i'll jump back into it... everyone here is SOOO cool... thanks people LOLOL

---

Hexagon, Carrara, Sculptris, and recently Sketchup.