making movies

I have recently purchased XARA 3D Maker, and want to know how to export animations in avi HD 1440-1028.

I don't know either, how to make movies longer, or in other words how to change the time of the initial show.

Any help?

Welcome to TalkGraphics snafuwanleg. I looked but there is seems to be no way to save as HD that I could see. However you can do everything else you want. From the file menu export animation and select avi.To get the size you want, when you export your animation from the popup select user defined and use the top row of number keys not the numb pad to change the numbers. Color depth I'm not sure about but it seems to me true color might be best.

Attachment 102265Attachment 102266

Which avi codec you use?, I am using Cinepak por Radius, and has a different popup window than you show, mine has on the left : Current Window Size (selected), and Crop (no selected), then below: Width: 1058 and Heigth: 490, True Color: 24 bit.
In the next window: Avi Options, there are: Codec Cinepak por Radius and options are: Quality: 100%, Key Frame every-> 60 frames.

And tha's all, may be I have to change the codec, again, Which one you use?

Codec Cinepak by Radius and options are: Quality: 100%, Key Frame every-15 frames.

Attachment 102268

Thank you for your help, so, what do I have to do to set the time of the show at my convenience?

I don't know, so I have asked the mod of this forum to see if he can help.

This was an interesting exercise to follow up. I had made a screensaver a few years ago for one of my spinny badges, and spent a lot of time getting the best quality I could, with the largest output to fit my then screen resolution of 1440x900, then later 1920x1080. I ended up using the Microsoft Video 1 codec, set to 100% quality, and leaving the rest of the settings. This was for .scr, but .avi works the same way using the same codec.

Getting the right screen size output was tricky, but only because my badge had invisible sizing pixels (matt black, on a black background) which effectively formed the bounding box for the badge, so the visible image was actually smaller that the screen size anyway, because I'd have a black border.

When you export the animation Xara3d gives you the option of using the frame size in use in Xara3d which you can crop, or setting a user size. I used the user size, because the frame size is limited by the Xara3D scroll bars and other windows furniture. In effect for full screen HD just set 1920x1080 in the user settings to output the animation at full size if your screen resolution supports it. Xara3D has a limit on export of 2000x2000. My badge is much taller than it is wide, so I actually set 1024x1080, and that works fine. Bear in mind that large resolutions with lots of frames will give large filesizes.

If you don't need to use the full screen you will need to experiment what gives you the most suitable output.

Not sure what you mean re time of show. You are basically creating a set of animation frames enclosed in avi format, so duration will be set by number of frames per second times the number of frames for a full cycle. You can loop an avi in Windows media player, but that is an option of that application, not the of the avi itself. It sounds like you are asking about options that would really depend on the avi player, rather than Xara3D.

Mike

PS meant to add that my file size ended up at 23.5M for 90 frames at that resolution of 1024x1080.

Thank you simsmj. Hope that helps him.

Just for further information, although the MSV-1 codec offers 100% quality, it still does a great job in compressing the content, as compared with the Uncompressed codec. The file I mentioned in my post was around 23.5M using the MSV-1 codec, but comes out at 292M with the Uncompressed codec. It looks very clean, and also brighter than the MSV-1 version, and my machine seems to have no problem rendering it, so it has become my new screensaver version now.

Mike

OK SIMSMJ, thank you for your answer.

I've read and follow your advice, and gotten the possibility of set the time longer than 1minute, but limiting the possibilities of resolution and speed of the show, so that, it makes difficult to be used in movies, if it's going to be implemented or embedded as a clip.

What I don't still understand, is why this application has no any option to set the time of the show, to meet user needs, because it always produces a show of 1 minute long, and should be set at user will.

Unless you've found other solution.

When you say "the time of the show", do you mean the total duration of the animation you have made?

Xara3D does not set a show duration of 1 minute. The duration will be set by the duration of individual frames times the number of frames. The user can set either or both of these to meet the user's needs at the user's will within Xara3D's animation dialogue box with Frames per cycle, and Frames per second settings. If you need the animation to take longer, you can either set fewer frames per second, or use more frames to achieve the full cycle, or both.

Xara3D was never intended for creation of animated movie clips, but for simple text and/or graphic logo animations for web sites. A resolution limit of 2000x2000 pixels is still not a serious limitation in the web world.

Perhaps you could provide more information on your animation? It is a little hard to provide more specific help without a better idea what the issue is. It is often the case that a little lateral thinking can sidestep the problem, and with Xara3D there is almost always more than one way to skin a cat.

Mike

I was trying to use this application to make videoclips, usually I use Blufftitler and tryed this as an alternative.

Thank you anyway

Hi snafuwanleg—

Xara 3D was intended to create animated GIFs and Shockwave (swf) files, and was never really engineered to produce feature length motion pictures or even titling for motion pictures. And this is why there is a limit to the length of an animation cycle…IOW an animation that ends one frame before it begins to create a continuous animation when looped by a Web device, or an innate one such as GIF.

I am supposing because you want both HD and you want the AVI file format, that you have bigger plans for your animation than a 30 frame cycle of something going on, right?

Okay, I wrote a book on animation using a non-animation program (Photoshop) about 5 years ago and the rules haven’t changed all that much.

1. Your animation rate in Xara 3D should be 30 frames per second (fps) because progressive, not interlaced and not GIF, is the de facto standard for digital media frame rate.

2. Your frame size output can be anything you like, but if you’re conforming to broadcast standards, 720 by 480 yields a standard NTSC compliant frame, but the pixels are .9 aspect ratio and Xara 3D doesn’t do that non square pixel stuff, so you’d used 640 by 480 p, square pixels. Your HD export of 1440-1028 is quite an usual size and aspect ratio, and you might have a problem viewing it properly. Again, Xara 3D only deals in square pixels on export and 1440 by 1028 is a pixel aspect ratio of 1.4, not even 1.3 as widescreen is specified. I recommend that you experiment with 720p first, 1280 by 720 pixels, before continuing.

3. There is no equity in writing a video to 15 fps, or 25 fps (unless you plan to broadcast in certain countries in Europe and South America. 30 fps is the standard for digital video, and if you use anything less, you’re not slowing the film down, you’re just decreasing the video time resolution so, for example, 12 frames per second for 30 seconds takes the same time as 30 frames per second for 30 seconds, but the video looks choppy at 12 fps because the duration of each still frame is onscreen for too long.

4. Don’t use any codec when exporting. Leave compression to a third party free convertor such as Any Video Convertor. Why? Because codecs that are called from Windows are notoriously crappy, or crappily implemented. What you want in the end is an uncompressed copy of your video that can be copied over and over again with any number of codecs until you find the right one for you. Otherwise, you’re going to be exporting different copies from X3D for days.




5. My recommendation is original dimensions, no audio (obviously) anywhere from 2500 to 6000 bits per second frame transfer rate (affects the quality and the capability to stream), progressive scan, not interlaced, widescreen orientation if it’s widescreen and the option is offered.


By the way, here’s a swf animation exported from Xara Designer Pro. It can not only export to AVI, but it can also export with a transparency mask. That’s how I got the other animations behind it using a video editor. NLTE (non-linear Timeline editors) are important to anyone’s work if they are serious about animation or video in general. For starters, I think I read in the X3D documentation that one of the MAGIX movie editors will recognize and drop-out an alpha channel.



My Best,

Gary

I was far away when this came out. snafuwanleg, you want to use a video program for making videoclips. Look at the Magix.com site for the appropriate products, and visit the Magix Info Forum for user information.