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Rendering huge composition for HD “Montage” system
I have a massive render job to do…. never done one this big… and would love any suggestions or comments that will steer me from disaster!
First off, our projection screen size we are looking at is 18′ x 85′. that is a 1:4.7 ratio. The projected image will be 1054 by 4958. this WILL be fed by two 1920 by 1080 hd decks which are fed through a system called “Montage”. (It is able to stitch the 2 sources and stretch the image on the horizontal to fit the screen)I plan to create an after effects sub-comp at the full resolution – 1054 by 4958. Then position the 2 half of the sub-comp into 1920 by 1080 comps to render out, [SQUASHING the horizontal so that it fits.] Doing this maximizes the vertical without the waste of letterboxing. The weight that this puts on my AE system is already cause for concern.
The source footage would be tiffs and photoshop and illustrator layered files…. maybe some QT stock footage…. but generally a lot of subcomps and movement… and you can be sure I will be keeping heavy effects to a minimum…. unfortunately.
I made some simple test animations within the main huge comp and test rendered it from the HD render comps! The piece is 20 minutes long and based on this test I will need to render 2 x 55 hour pieces, on a 2.5 Dual G5…. Yikes…. Can’t imagine what the files sizes will be and how I can effectively [and economically] take this into my Final Cut HD for output to a HD deck of some sort… which I also have to research and acquire! I really have no idea what codec I need to use to maintain quality, minimize render time and to allow seemless import into FCP.
I am feeling really really nervous about this job before I even start!!!! Is there an easier or more efficient way to produce this?
Or know of any practical workflows for this online that will help me sleep better!
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3 Replies
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Hey dude, I have felt your pain, I just finished a full HD project. An intro for a show with lots of compositing. But your resolution is definitely out of the ordinary. I wouldn
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Adam Duguay beat me to the punch on compression, I stick with PNG’s when trying to keep my HD transportable and lossless for different apps/platforms but you’re dealing with pretty big sizes. My first instinct would be to try photo-jpg QT’s with maximum quality. It does hold up very well and the filesize gains (or would it be losses, hehe) are dramatic. I have worked with a similar system, i think, when doing work for a nightclub here in NYC with a unique 360degree projection setup, but it was NTSC video I was dealing with (scripts kept playback from multiple DPS Perceptions in sync, each PVR fed it’s own projector).
Feel free to contact me in private if ya need any rendering support. we’re pretty able over here. I predict a great amount of downtime due to rendering if you’re working on standard boxes.
Alpay Kasal
Artist/Engineer
https://www.NYCRenderfarm.com -
I did a Montage gig last year and I only had to lay it off to one tape and the montage did the split between the projectors. we had three projectors (actually six if you include the backups) across a 60′ screen. How I got past the aspect ratio was to create at the full size, which in your case is 1054 by 4958. Then I rendered out to 1080i using stretch in the output module and changed the comp size to 1920×1080. This cuts down on having to lay off multiple tapes for a sync roll and less chance of error when the thing finally shows. To layoff 20 mins of Uncompressed 1080i you will need a fast array such as the 4105 from huge…or render out the thing, to a big ole fw 800 drive and take it to an edit suite for layoff/mastering. Prepare yourself for lots and lots of render and transfer times.
jeremy
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