Moho Forum

Say I have a very complicated background scene and it doesn't matter to me if I insert an image to use, or drawing something similar out as a vector in AS using LOTS of points. When rendering, which option will end up causing larger file sizes and slower rendering?

Thanks

image beats a point-heavy vector every time for speed.

also consider using a compositor - render your action as a separate file against a transparent background and add the background in the compositing program.

file size depends on frame rate, frame size and the output codec more than on the contents of the input .anme. Uncompressed AVI will be big whatever you do.

Thanks for the reply
Can you give me some more information about compositing programs? Is there one you prefer (preferably free)? Any more specific instructions would be greatly appreciated. I'm really getting a handle on doing some great animations in AS but I'm still a newby at exporting and rendering.

I use premiere (adobe). The pro version is $$$; Premiere elements is much cheaper (and you can get it bundled with Photoshop elements).

free - Mac users will put me straight here - iMovie I think comes free with it? Windows: movie maker.

broadly: create your background(s) as a PNG if you want partial transparency, or any graphics (e.g. JPG) if not, using a drawing program of your choice (inkscape, Photoshop, AS...). Create your action using AS - and render so that you get an alpha channel (i.e. transparency). [check this forum - lots of threads on "how do I get an alpha channel?"] In your video editor have one video channel for the streams you want to mix: e.g. one bg, one fg; plus audio etc as you want. If you want more "blow-by-blow" that'll depend on the programs you have... but just ask. someone will pick it up .. (I expect!)

hayasidist wrote:image beats a point-heavy vector every time for speed.

This hasn't been my experience. I have found vectors to render much faster, but these are vectors without an extremely large number of points. The images I was using were Photoshop layers, and they took an enormous amount of time to render. When I traced the images in vector format, they rendered in less than half the time.

Also, things like blurring and any image filters cause render times to increase. Be careful to eliminate any unneeded layers. Even layers hidden by other layers will be rendered, and then the next layer will render over them.

If you're talking about anime file size, vectors will certainly make a smaller file than lots of images. Rendered animation size depends on a lot of different factors; format, compression, resolution.

Check out Blender.org for compositing. It's free, but has a steep learning curve.

yeah - but the OP was about "point-heavy" vectors ... totally agree with you when few points and no "clever" effects.

Here's a scene I'm using that's got a ton of points. When I made this at first it would take about 15 seconds to render a single frame but I did stumble upon an interesting little trick. When it was rendering the layers with all the windows and stars, the render window would show the layer pop up then make the stars and windows one at a time.

For this scene I didn't need each window or star to have a different color or shape effect so I created them all as one shape. (The stars in the background are one shape. The windows for the midground buildings are all one shape. The windows for the buildings in front etc.) Now the scene renders in about 7 seconds and when it comes to the stars and windows in the render window they all pop up at the same time.

I didn't delete any points in the artwork but by taking a bunch of the repetitive shapes and making them one shape it cut render time in half. I have no idea if this had any effect on the file's size. I'm just a cartoon hobbyist hack and I don't have any restrictions on render time or file sizes for a customer. So of course I it depends on what your individual needs are.

I did think about just using an image file but I ran into trouble with how it looked when I zoomed in. I am going to use an image file of this same scene with others for a scrolling background on a chase scene later.

This is a fine example of what can achieved with just vectors.

As for rendering this as image: before rendering, set the project size to 2x or 4x the original dimensions. You will get a very large image file into which you can zoom in 2x or 4x without loosing quality.

slowtiger wrote:This is a fine example of what can achieved with just vectors.

I agree. That's very nice! and good tip too, making lots of little items into one shape.