Trouble in Wide shots

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Mon May 11, 2009 8:29 pm

Whenever I export an animation into a video file, it comes out kind of blurry around the edges. This is really no big deal until I pull the camera out, at which point things go really strange. Characters' outlines go from black to a kind of fuzzy white, things get really blurry, and in the last video I made, the charaters' mouths (which were Papagayo switch files) slowly opened up as the camera zoomed out, even though I made sure they were in a "rest" position.

So, could this be because I have Anime Studio Basic, and these things are solved in the Pro edition, or am I exporting them wrong/just an idiot?

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon May 11, 2009 9:32 pm

This sounds really strange to me. It would be easily possible within a real rostrum camera setup, with wrong lenses and stuff, but not in a totally digital environment.

OK. Which dimensions do you use, and which codec?
Do you use any layer effects like blur, multiply, some texture layers over the whole frame?
Do you use a 3D setup?

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Wed May 13, 2009 11:22 pm

I think I know.

You drew your character in AS. When you pull the camera out, the lines go much thinner, and the mouth you drew with vector points - the line thickness makes it look like the mouth is opening. See, the line thickness, probably a black line, gets so bunched up it looks like a big black hole when you zoom out. And the nice thick black lines you normally see for the character outline changes as you zoom out and go to widescreen.

Yep. The AS drawing tools are cool but they do change with the camera changes.

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:47 pm

Okay. I'm pretty sure that's it. Any reason for the blurriness and the strange white outlines though?

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:26 am

All right, so in the three days of rumination and tinkering I've had, I've realized that pretty much of this is indeed caused by the fact that the characters and lines do actually warp as they are zoomed in or out. So. The next step is...well...what now?

I am using this program to animate a full-length (albeit amatuer) movie, so how might I go about working around this? Is this sort of thing not an issue in the Pro version? Should I draw the characters outside of Anime Studio? Should I switch programs (gasp!)? Or should I give it up all up for a life in a monastery?

(P.S. Has anyone else even had this problem?)

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun May 24, 2009 4:36 am

It has to do with scale compensation. Is it on or off for your layers? I would advise turning it ON. Scale compensation will maintain the "relative" line thickness when zooming the camera or scaling the layer. The strokes will scale with everything else.

I don't know what you expect to happen. If you have a stroke thickness the line should either stay the same weight or it should scale. Both options are available in both versions (I think? Is scale compensation not in Standard?).

Double click a vector layer and look for scale compensation check box. If it isn't there then upgrading to pro is the best bet. Or use outlined shapes for strokes.

-vern

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun May 24, 2009 5:57 am

Standard has scale compensation.

Since everyone seems to be taking guesses at this, I'd suggest PMing the file to someone on here (if you don't want to share it publicly) or posting a simple file that illustrates the problem. This is the only sure-fire way to find a solution. It's just hard to guess at unless someone's happened across it before.

Usually this means it's a simple thing that's been over looked.

DarthFurby · Post by **DarthFurby** » Sun May 24, 2009 1:04 pm

This is one of the reasons I stick to shapes and avoid using lines whenever possible.

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:00 pm

Yeah, I'll post an Anime Studio file, and then a video file to show you what it looks like rendered on my end.

However...forgive my noobage, but what's the best way to upload those here?

rylleman · Post by **rylleman** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:12 pm

Yeah, this can be quite an issue with camera pulls.
What I usually do in these circumstances is render the character out as a png sequence, without the camera track. Then I import the sequence into the scene switchlayered and apply the camera track. AS is much better at scaling pixel graphics than vectors.

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:17 pm

Rancid_Snowman wrote:Yeah, I'll post an Anime Studio file, and then a video file to show you what it looks like rendered on my end.

However...forgive my noobage, but what's the best way to upload those here?

There isn't any way to upload files to this forum -- what you need to do is find a place to host them elsewhere and include the links here.

Those of us with web sites simply post them to our own sites, but there are a ton of free places out there (just do a Google). And I'm sure you know all the major video ones (like YouTube) for your videos.

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 1:00 am

Okay, the file itself:

http://www.2shared.com/file/6091434/d6d ... _Test.html

And the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvsYZ6VaQ6Y

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:14 am

viewtopic.php?t=11960&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Took me forever to find this again. This thread shows some options. I couldn't find DK's thread on the topic.

Rancid_Snowman · Post by **Rancid_Snowman** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:25 am

Wow. You know synthsin, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I was looking for. How incredibly amazing, thank you!

Now, as far as establishing it initially, what would be the best way to keep things blurry-free from the beginning. I always seem to have them blur when I export them, so should I just work with thicker lines and closer shots?

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:04 am

Yeah, as soon as I saw your example file, I thought of that thread. For it getting blurry as you zoom out, one of those tricks should work.

Also, the real problem with that mouth is the number of fills it has (about five or six). If you clean that up and make it only one fill, the line quality will match the rest. I think each of those fills is being pushed out by the anti-aliasing.