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Lighting Advice

DabblingDanDabblingDan Posts: 39
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

I am looking for some help with lighting in Carrara 8 Pro Beta. I recently completed a short animation (Christmas Magic II). I loaded it to Youtube. I also put a version on a DVD. When I view the output on my television using the DVD the lighting is much brighter than appears in the PC version. I also viewed it on Youtube using a smart phone and there the picture seems darker.
Is there a way to gauge your lighting effects so they have a more consistent look regardless of how it is viewed?

Thanks for your suggestions and insights.

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,623
    edited December 1969

    These differences are actually created during the format change, not your lighting in Carrara.
    Many movie making apps have a feature that will automatically convert your work for YouTube. For me, that conversion ALWAYS turns out way too dark. Instead, I opt for a much higher resolution conversion meant for watching via PC, and then let YouTube convert it as I upload - which has worked much better.

    DVD burning is another beast, altogether, and you'll just need to try various settings.

    One thing that can be very helpful, but I don't know how to direct you aside from Goggle, is to 'optimize' your monitor on your PC so that you're rendering at the proper levels to begin with.

    Hope this helps get some solutions started for you.
    We'll talk again soon.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Dartanbeck is correct. The issue isn't really the renderer in Carrara, it's the file compression. Youtube is converting and compressing the video to it's own file type, which I believe is flash based. Basically it's throwing data away to optimize it. To minimize the negative effects, you need to upload the highest quality video you can. You are not only limited by Youtube's file size limits, but also your own upload speed, so it's always going to be a bit of a trade off.


    The DVD is going to appear brighter because not as much data is being thrown out when compressing your video for DVDs. There are many technical reasons as to why a video watched on a television is brighter than on you computer screen, but the short of it is that TVs tend to have a brighter picture.


    The best way to get an idea of how good your render is going to look is render it to a lossless format or even uncompressed.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Vimeo provides a much better viewing experience - their codec is really beautiful if you buy the (i think) $60yr membership..., but it is not the social network and search engine baby that Youtube is....

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    And again, it doesn't matter how good the compressor for youtube, vimeo or hulu is, if the source is already heavily compressed, the target compressor is still going to throw out more data as it transencodes the source file. The better the source, the better the youtube or vimeo version.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    it doesn't matter how good the compressor for youtube, vimeo or hulu is, if the source is already heavily compressed, the target compressor is still going to throw out more data as it transencodes the source file. The better the source, the better the youtube or vimeo version.

    Yes, "garbage in - garbage out" is the old saying for video compression, but there is a CLEAR difference in quality between Youtube's codec and Vimeo's....

    Hulu? There is no uploading to Hulu is there???

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    evilproducer said:
    it doesn't matter how good the compressor for youtube, vimeo or hulu is, if the source is already heavily compressed, the target compressor is still going to throw out more data as it transencodes the source file. The better the source, the better the youtube or vimeo version.

    Yes, "garbage in - garbage out" is the old saying for video compression, but there is a CLEAR difference in quality between Youtube's codec and Vimeo's....

    Hulu? There is no uploading to Hulu is there???


    I just threw Hulu in there as it's also flash based. I have no idea if you can. I suppose if you're a content provider...

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