Saving animations as mp4 video?

TimBo

This may have been asked before but is there something I can download to enable saving my animations to mp4 format instead of avi format within the Carrara rendering window? I currently save the renderings as uncompressed avi and then get some other program to convert that into mp4. I may be mistaken but I thought saving as mp4 was something the newer versions of Carrara would do. I also thought that mp4 video could support more color and present a much smoother and more fluid action in animations. I currently are getting stuttering in even simple animations. I always have had stuttering in motion. It makes no difference whether 30 fps or 60 fps, it's the same result.

argus1000

I believe that stuttering is caused because you probably play the animation inside Carrara's render window. If you play it with an outside player, like Quictime player or Windows Media player, the stuttering will cease. That has been my experience.

WendyLuvsCatz

I prefer image series myself and add the audio seperately
for mp4 Hitfilm is good

cdordoni

timothyeberry said:

This may have been asked before but is there something I can download to enable saving my animations to mp4 format instead of avi format within the Carrara rendering window? I currently save the renderings as uncompressed avi and then get some other program to convert that into mp4. I may be mistaken but I thought saving as mp4 was something the newer versions of Carrara would do. I also thought that mp4 video could support more color and present a much smoother and more fluid action in animations. I currently are getting stuttering in even simple animations. I always have had stuttering in motion. It makes no difference whether 30 fps or 60 fps, it's the same result.

Whether or not you can export to mp4 is determined by the codecs installed on your computer, not by Carrara.

ffmeg is free https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Keep in mind that performance & quality can vary depending on the developer. I have used the 3ivx mp4 enocoder and it works well, although there is a small cost depending on personal or commercial use.

Dual pass encoders can also improve the results. 3ivx has dual pass, but I am not sure about ffmpeg.

TimBo

cdordoni said:

timothyeberry said:

This may have been asked before but is there something I can download to enable saving my animations to mp4 format instead of avi format within the Carrara rendering window? I currently save the renderings as uncompressed avi and then get some other program to convert that into mp4. I may be mistaken but I thought saving as mp4 was something the newer versions of Carrara would do. I also thought that mp4 video could support more color and present a much smoother and more fluid action in animations. I currently are getting stuttering in even simple animations. I always have had stuttering in motion. It makes no difference whether 30 fps or 60 fps, it's the same result.

Whether or not you can export to mp4 is determined by the codecs installed on your computer, not by Carrara.

ffmeg is free https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Keep in mind that performance & quality can vary depending on the developer. I have used the 3ivx mp4 enocoder and it works well, although there is a small cost depending on personal or commercial use.

Dual pass encoders can also improve the results. 3ivx has dual pass, but I am not sure about ffmpeg.

I did get the ability to utilize the ffmpeg codec in Carrara. I was not sure how to load them though. I had to do a little research on it. Forgive me but some of this stuff is like a foreign language to me. Thanks for the info about ffmpeg. However, it seems now that I've gone from occasional hesitations or stuttering in playback to what is best described as a vibrating or rapid stops between each frame in an animation. Is there a way to reduce or stop that? As an example, I have a flat rectangular shape being rotated on a turntable. I can see a rapid stop-start the whole time the rectangle is rotating.

cdordoni

timothyeberry said:

However, it seems now that I've gone from occasional hesitations or stuttering in playback to what is best described as a vibrating or rapid stops between each frame in an animation. Is there a way to reduce or stop that? As an example, I have a flat rectangular shape being rotated on a turntable. I can see a rapid stop-start the whole time the rectangle is rotating.

This does not sound like a codec issue.

If you have an object continuously rotating, try changing the rotation controller in the Motion tab from the default "Quaternion" to "Angles" to see if that solves the issue.

cdordoni

timothyeberry said:

I was not sure how to load them though.

Usually the installer puts them where they need to go (in a system directory) so they can be used by any application. Then you should be able to choose the specific codec from within Carrara or a video editing application.

In Carrara, if you go to the Render room, the File Format drop down shows the available codecs. You have to choose the "Movie" button to select the one you want to use.

WendyLuvsCatz

is the stuttering in preview or your final render?
assembly room preview is pretty dodgey

TimBo

wendy♥catz said:

is the stuttering in preview or your final render?
assembly room preview is pretty dodgey

In the assembly room the animation is smooth as expected. But the final render has that fine vibration motion. It is like one of those old flip animations we used to play with. It still shows up in external video viewer programs.

TimBo

timothyeberry said:

cdordoni said:

timothyeberry said:

This may have been asked before but is there something I can download to enable saving my animations to mp4 format instead of avi format within the Carrara rendering window? I currently save the renderings as uncompressed avi and then get some other program to convert that into mp4. I may be mistaken but I thought saving as mp4 was something the newer versions of Carrara would do. I also thought that mp4 video could support more color and present a much smoother and more fluid action in animations. I currently are getting stuttering in even simple animations. I always have had stuttering in motion. It makes no difference whether 30 fps or 60 fps, it's the same result.

Whether or not you can export to mp4 is determined by the codecs installed on your computer, not by Carrara.

ffmeg is free https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Keep in mind that performance & quality can vary depending on the developer. I have used the 3ivx mp4 enocoder and it works well, although there is a small cost depending on personal or commercial use.

Dual pass encoders can also improve the results. 3ivx has dual pass, but I am not sure about ffmpeg.

I did get the ability to utilize the ffmpeg codec in Carrara. I was not sure how to load them though. I had to do a little research on it. Forgive me but some of this stuff is like a foreign language to me. Thanks for the info about ffmpeg. However, it seems now that I've gone from occasional hesitations or stuttering in playback to what is best described as a vibrating or rapid stops between each frame in an animation. Is there a way to reduce or stop that? As an example, I have a flat rectangular shape being rotated on a turntable. I can see a rapid stop-start the whole time the rectangle is rotating.

I meant to say I finally saw ffdshow (I think) in the options window of the windows avi render settings. Honestly this is getting a bit complicated for me but I do wish I could get silky smooth animations like I've seen done by others. Maybe Carrara is not cut out to do such.

TimBo

cdordoni said:

timothyeberry said:

I was not sure how to load them though.

Usually the installer puts them where they need to go (in a system directory) so they can be used by any application. Then you should be able to choose the specific codec from within Carrara or a video editing application.

I don't think that happened. How can I tell if it's working?

In Carrara, if you go to the Render room, the File Format drop down shows the available codecs. You have to choose the "Movie" button to select the one you want to use.

evilproducer

timothyeberry said:

timothyeberry said:

cdordoni said:

timothyeberry said:

This may have been asked before but is there something I can download to enable saving my animations to mp4 format instead of avi format within the Carrara rendering window? I currently save the renderings as uncompressed avi and then get some other program to convert that into mp4. I may be mistaken but I thought saving as mp4 was something the newer versions of Carrara would do. I also thought that mp4 video could support more color and present a much smoother and more fluid action in animations. I currently are getting stuttering in even simple animations. I always have had stuttering in motion. It makes no difference whether 30 fps or 60 fps, it's the same result.

Whether or not you can export to mp4 is determined by the codecs installed on your computer, not by Carrara.

ffmeg is free https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Keep in mind that performance & quality can vary depending on the developer. I have used the 3ivx mp4 enocoder and it works well, although there is a small cost depending on personal or commercial use.

Dual pass encoders can also improve the results. 3ivx has dual pass, but I am not sure about ffmpeg.

I did get the ability to utilize the ffmpeg codec in Carrara. I was not sure how to load them though. I had to do a little research on it. Forgive me but some of this stuff is like a foreign language to me. Thanks for the info about ffmpeg. However, it seems now that I've gone from occasional hesitations or stuttering in playback to what is best described as a vibrating or rapid stops between each frame in an animation. Is there a way to reduce or stop that? As an example, I have a flat rectangular shape being rotated on a turntable. I can see a rapid stop-start the whole time the rectangle is rotating.

I meant to say I finally saw ffdshow (I think) in the options window of the windows avi render settings. Honestly this is getting a bit complicated for me but I do wish I could get silky smooth animations like I've seen done by others. Maybe Carrara is not cut out to do such.

Carrara is cut out to for smooth animations. More than likely it is the compression, or perhaps lack of knowledge about how to set up the codec's options. Try rendering to an image sequence, or maybe render an uncompressed file and then use an external editor to compress it.

cdordoni

timothyeberry said:

I meant to say I finally saw ffdshow (I think) in the options window of the windows avi render settings.

I tried installing FFMPEG and I must have remembered incorrectly. It only install the .dll and no configuration settings.

Yes, you are right. FFDshow will let you use mp4 codec. It won't save the files with an MP4 extension, it just uses the AVI extension when it saves.

I also installed the 3ivx codec for comparison, but there is no 64-bit version, so it does not show up as an option on my 64-bit system.

TimBo

I appreciate the effort of those who tried to help me. It is obvious that I do not know what I am doing. I do wish I did. I was hoping for an answer simple enough for my level of understanding. I do not think it is my computer because it is an HD capable computer. Oh, changing the motion type cause an even more pronounced vibration. It reminded me of the second hand on my watch. I tried a sequenced render and found a program to compile it. But the problem is still there. It may still fall back on something I have not done right in the assembly and render setup. And too it might be the compiler I used. It could be about the same program as comes with Carrara.

evilproducer

Let's get into some specifics to see if we can help you solve this problem.

What are your system specs and what bit version of Carrara are you using? Some other things that may help are screen captures of the available movie format types, the options that are available in your preferred format, etc.

TimBo

I'm hoping I have what you asked for. I sent a pic of my system. I am running Carrara 8.5 Pro (64 bit). My Carrara started doing some strange things after I messed around with codecs yesterday. Even my internet was doing strange things. I did a system restore and got it all stable again. So now I am back to having the default movie features of Carrara. I was just looking and I can't find where or how I came up with the ffdshow I had yesterday. I wish my luck was better about these things.

evilproducer

There is an issue with 64 bit Carrara translating the rendered movie to Quicktime because QT and the CODECs are 32 bit. It's a bit technical to get into, and I don't have all the techie vocabulary and knowledge to really explain it well. I kind of wonder if it is a similar issue with your compressor. The workaround isn't really that hard, and that is to render to an image sequence and compile it with your video software.

Image sequences are generally considered a best practice, for numerous reasons. The most important to me is that if I were rendering to a movie file and my power went out, or my computer crashed, chances are, all the time spent rendering would be lost. With an image sequence, you could pick up where you left off.

There are other advantages as well. One that I have read about is that since a movie file is basically a container for the video, Carrara has to open the container and close the container for each frame ( this is what I read, but I don't recall if it was the new forum or the old one). On the Mac, and maybe on Windows, this caused a memory leak I think, and the longer the animation was, the more the render slowed down as it went along. Image sequences shouldn't have this problem.

TimBo

evilproducer said:

There is an issue with 64 bit Carrara translating the rendered movie to Quicktime because QT and the CODECs are 32 bit. It's a bit technical to get into, and I don't have all the techie vocabulary and knowledge to really explain it well. I kind of wonder if it is a similar issue with your compressor. The workaround isn't really that hard, and that is to render to an image sequence and compile it with your video software.

Image sequences are generally considered a best practice, for numerous reasons. The most important to me is that if I were rendering to a movie file and my power went out, or my computer crashed, chances are, all the time spent rendering would be lost. With an image sequence, you could pick up where you left off.

There are other advantages as well. One that I have read about is that since a movie file is basically a container for the video, Carrara has to open the container and close the container for each frame ( this is what I read, but I don't recall if it was the new forum or the old one). On the Mac, and maybe on Windows, this caused a memory leak I think, and the longer the animation was, the more the render slowed down as it went along. Image sequences shouldn't have this problem.

I like your explanation very much. It makes sense. I really don't have a compiler. I tried a simple freebie but it is as bad as Carrara's works. Honestly I really had no idea what all the settings were about. My knowledge is to the extent that I am a danger to myself. What compiler would you recommend that will work well with a 64 bit OS? My wallet is not all that fat. I remember many years ago when Povray was run in dos. It did beautiful render work and there was a sequence compiler that worked with it. They were good animations too.

WendyLuvsCatz

have you tried virtualdub?
90% of my animations use virtualdub rendering it to temp uncompressed avi I then use in Windows moviemaker to render wmv
if I want mp4 I use Hitfilm but Virtualdub can render compressed to mpeg_4 under filters compression too, just tends to be rather slow at it.
you can also do image series in Quicktime pro if you prefer the mov format I believe

TimBo

wendy♥catz said:

have you tried virtualdub?
90% of my animations use virtualdub rendering it to temp uncompressed avi I then use in Windows moviemaker to render wmv
if I want mp4 I use Hitfilm but Virtualdub can render compressed to mpeg_4 under filters compression too, just tends to be rather slow at it.
you can also do image series in Quicktime pro if you prefer the mov format I believe

I have tried Quicktime Pro to see how my animations looked. It is all the same no matter what I do them with. Oh, the QT Pro does work with sequenced files and saves them to mp4 format along with several other formats. I recently did a sample animation of chrome spheres hovering in a circular path above a red and white checkered plane. It is apparent that there is a finite amount of time between each frame and it causes the movement to be vibrating as it moves along.

While rendering in Carrara I have even tried blur frames to see if that would smooth things between frame changes. I can't tell that it did any good. I wish one of y'all were here to see what maybe I am doing wrong. I take it for granted that the default render settings were supposed to be close to optimal.

WendyLuvsCatz

what framerate are you looking at?

TimBo

wendy♥catz said:

what framerate are you looking at?

30 fps on a 640 x 480 size.

WendyLuvsCatz

then it must be something you are doing in carrara as that is a smooth playback time.
the keyframing of the spheres?
is there much time between transitions as carrara will tween movements.

TimBo

wendy♥catz said:

then it must be something you are doing in carrara as that is a smooth playback time.
the keyframing of the spheres?
is there much time between transitions as carrara will tween movements.

I'm using the "spin" function to make a complete single spin in four seconds. As far as time between frames I have no idea.

Oh, I peeked at some of your animations on YouTube. Yours are as smooth as I wish my animations were. It's gotta be a setting I am overlooking somewhere.

WendyLuvsCatz

mmm puzzled as spin modifier should be smooth unless your hotpoint is off in which case it would wobble but still be smooth
maybe upload an example to youtube so we can see the issue?

TimBo

wendy♥catz said:

mmm puzzled as spin modifier should be smooth unless your hotpoint is off in which case it would wobble but still be smooth
maybe upload an example to youtube so we can see the issue?

Never done that before. Let me see if I can figure it out. Bet they run smooth for you. T'would be my luck.

The YouTube links were deleted by me. I have put my corrected rendering here:

http://youtu.be/Adhi7rjkAHw

WendyLuvsCatz

timothyeberry said:

wendy♥catz said:

mmm puzzled as spin modifier should be smooth unless your hotpoint is off in which case it would wobble but still be smooth
maybe upload an example to youtube so we can see the issue?

Never done that before. Let me see if I can figure it out. Bet they run smooth for you. T'would be my luck.

http://youtu.be/9Z8BJtW-o1o

http://youtu.be/YYKQZBa8Uf8
:lol: they do!!!!
Am on my android but nonetheless,
tells me it is your media player

TimBo

So you believe it is not so much the animations as it is my computer's ability to play them smoothly? Interesting because it is my own animations that jitter like that. Any other YouTube movie or DVD movie is smooth as silk on my screen. Even the animations you made are smooth motions. I watched my own animations from the YouTube window and I could see occasional jitters toward the end. If I made that same animation last for a minute I bet surely you would see occasional jitters throughout the playback. I watch my own animations with Cyberlink PowerDVD 13 and Media Player. I just got hold of QuickTime and it shows up in that as well.

It just occurred to me that I have some animations I did back when I was running Carrara 1.1. Most of those run well. I have one of the insides of a Volkswagen engine and it runs very smooth.

I dunno. But thanks for sticking with me on this. Maybe one of us will figure it out.

evilproducer

I tried looking but youtube says that they were removed by the user.

TimBo

evilproducer said:

I tried looking but youtube says that they were removed by the user.

Sorry about that. I put one of them back so you can see.

Try this link: http://youtu.be/Adhi7rjkAHw
and this one: http://youtu.be/E7QmpjBIG4Q

0oseven

timothyeberry said:

I'm hoping I have what you asked for. I sent a pic of my system. I am running Carrara 8.5 Pro (64 bit). My Carrara started doing some strange things after I messed around with codecs yesterday. Even my internet was doing strange things. I did a system restore and got it all stable again. So now I am back to having the default movie features of Carrara. I was just looking and I can't find where or how I came up with the ffdshow I had yesterday. I wish my luck was better about these things.

I'm wondering if your system spec is the problem. It appears you are not running a separate graphics card and Carrara likes Nvidea based cards so just maybe when you render the avi in Carrara the output is not great and that would translate to any playback software

I sometime get stutter when I playback in the render room but find if I run it 2/3 times it gets smoother however no problem with the saved file which by the way for quick reference I playback via the browser.
If you save your file into the folder for "ARTWORK" [ I create a subfolder called animations ] your video will have a thumbnail in the tray. double click to play. you get a separate player for each video played.