Topic: Snow Scene W.I.P.

Here's a snow scene which i made about 2 days ago, which will be used in my christmas film (hopefully)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aDEgtfJdc4

And i need some questions answered not only about this clip, but how i made the clip.

  • i am using sony vegas and it came out how it did: with black around the edges. Then i made the same thing, just with WMM, and it has no black around the edges. they are different quality- but yet- they have the same dimensions. so i think Sony Vegas is doing something to make it 'widescreen' (with the black around the edges). is there anyway of fixing that?

  • Sony vegas makes the video file size huge than it should. with WMM it was around 2 MB, but in sony vegas- it was 30 MB. is there a way to reduce the video size of when i render it in sony vegas without putting it through another video editor?

  • And what do you think about the snow?

Thanks
- Mason

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

Thankfully, I have had a good refresh on how snow normally falls. You could defidently make it fall faster, and if possible, make depth apparent.

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

o- in that scene (i forgot to mention) i was only the very first snow fall (lightly falling)

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

I've never used Vegas, but I'd suggest checking your export settings to see what compression codec you're using. If you're using Lossless (i.e. non-compressed), your files will be huge. Try H.264. Check the aspect ratio of your export, too, and make sure it's 16:9. I'm almost positive the reason you have those boxes is that Vegas exported 16:9 video at 4:3 using letterboxing, which inserts black boxes at the top and bottom of your footage. Then Youtube put black boxes on the left and right of your footage to convert the 4:3 footage back into 16:9. The result is a black outline all the way around.

Snowflakes were a bit small and fell a bit too slowly. As RealBrick said, a bit more depth would be good, too. Your lighting also didn't seem to fit for a snowy day. Not bad, though.

With all due respect Noodle, I don't want you here. - Ratboy Productions

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

hey! thanks noodle-i went through the properties and other: and it now came out like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBXdCcDKd68
no more cinematic wide screen videos. but i'm still trying to shrink it even more. this video came to about 5 MB. perhaps and .avi file.

EDIT: i just tried switching it to .avi. it made it different- and i didn't like it. the size went up too. (to about 40 MB) but yes- i'm searching for the spot where you said i should change it, noodle

Last edited by Mason (December 15, 2010 (03:59pm))

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

Here's some more. I didn't read everything posted above, but to make that clip better, you should make some depth, make maybe diff layers of snow at diff speeds, and... oh, yeah, try putting snow on the ground of the set. Maybe cotton, or sugar/powdered sugar, or maybe even real snow if you animate fast enough!

Brickfilmer a decade ago, now looking to relive the glory days mini/smile

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

it was just starting to snow. soft fluffy fuzzies which melt before they hit the ground mini/tongue

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

i don't have a white plates , but sugar is good idea.Thanks! mini/bigsmile

The idea for film is the most important thing. The animation we learn by the way.

Re: Snow Scene W.I.P.

Nice animation. Your camera angle is kind of weird, try putting it up more, on the minifigs' torsos level or smth like that. Snow doesn't fall that slow, play around with the speed.
If you want to make the video smaller (in size, I mean) change the format. MPEG 4 or Mp4 would work. WMV will decrease the size by quite a bit but it'll do the same to the quality. I usually export as MPEG 4.