Importing MOV files to TVPaint: how to avoid file size bloat?

[D.T. Nethery]

Rewatching this video (https://youtu.be/UQ33WBtOavQ) again several years later brings up a question: when importing an image sequence or .mov file of rendered 3D models (or live-action footage) into TVPaint for reference are there any methods to avoid the having the TVPaint file size get very large (which can tend to cause lag when working inside the file and increases the amount of space needed to store the file on my hard drive).

In this making-of video they show how they did pre-viz of dolly and crane shots using 3D models , then imported the image sequence of 3D model animation into the timeline to draw over the 3D models.



I understand that an image sequence or .mov or .mp4 file can be imported with Preload unchecked, so the file is not embedded in the TVPaint project , but functions instead as a referenced video file , but in my experience this tends to make the file laggy (almost as laggy as simply importing the image sequence or mov file in with PreLoad checked , so it is fully embedded in TVPaint).
Is it more a matter of the speed of the users CPU , available RAM , and whether using SSD instead of HDD ?

Are there any steps that can be taken to avoid the file size getting too large and laggy when using referenced CG or live-action footage ?

[slowtiger]

There are several tricks to this.

1. Do all image enhancing first in your video editor (boosting up contrast for rotoscoping, brightening, etc).
2. Use a very powerful machine. No, not the laptop you barely could afford as a student. A decent desktop with lots of RAM, an SDD (nowadays standard), and a powerful GPU.
3. Do short scenes/project files only. Even on my old machine a 10sec shot is no problem at all.
4. If you need a longer sequence or the whole video, think about working in half size and/or half frame rate. Good enough for sketching roughs and maintain the flow. You can then split this into separate projects and modify to final size/FPS.

That said, get used to the idea of Gigabyte files. They get that large when I render anyway, so having a large project file doesn't make a difference. TVP can handle them (it did already in 2008 when I had an 11GB file on a 8GB RAM machine - it only took 10 minutes to open or save, but drawing and playback was flawless).

[D.T. Nethery]

Thanks for the list of tricks to keep the file size smaller.


With CG animation it will help to render it with no lighting or fill, just line drawings, as Paul Johnson shows in these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ybavUT9dNg



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMUcafde5A4



Paul (who uses TVPaint for his character animation) does the animation of the spaceships in Cinema 4D , then renders it with the "Toon Filter" to render it as black and white lines only, then imports the image sequence to TVPaint, where the black and white line layers can be scan cleaned, making them very light. Then he can draw his characters interacting with the CG animation layers.