Video files are exporting extremely dark.

[MightyOtaking]

Hello, hello!
I'm having a strange issue! When I export my animations out as a Motion-JPEG .avi file, they appear extremely dark. I'm wondering if anyone else is having this problem?
I've recorded the issue here so you can get frustrated alongside me: https://youtu.be/CrRqtIf199M

Here are my PC details:
OS - Windows 10 Pro
CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40 GHz
RAM - 16.0 GB
Software - TVPaint 11 Pro
Tablet - Wacom Intuos 4 Large (model PTK-840)

And my export settings: https://i.imgur.com/3RYZWZD.jpeg
As mentioned in the above video, I export as Motion-JPEG, as it keeps the file size down (6mb for a 1 second clip).
Bizarrely enough, I just tried exporting as RGB (24 bits) or RGBA (32 Bits) and the colours come out perfect; not too dark at all! HOWEVER, the file size is enormous - 254mb for a 1 second clip! - so that's not really viable for me. Likewise, exporting as a .MOV file also keeps the colours correct, but it takes ages to save a MOV for some reason and, sadly, my version of SOny Vegas Pro 13 absolutely hates MOV files (again, for some absolutely unknown reason) and crashes or freezes when I have more than a few of them in my timeline. Which is why I switched to .avi files many projects ago.
TL:DR - I really have to find a way to get the Motion-JPEG export working.

I've uploaded the TVP file of one of the scenes fom the above video if anyone would like to download it and try exporting at their end? Maybe it's an issue with my PC or something unfathomable and it will work perfectly well on your machine...?
The file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18d3VOz ... sp=sharing

I've tried opening the exported video files in various players, such as Media Player Classic and VLC and they all display it as very dark, so I don't think it's a video player issue. I think it's actually exporting out of TVPaint that way.

Thanks for your time,
Paul

[Peter Wassink]

This has to be the avi codec.
did you try other settings ?
like AVI directshow? or anothermode with the AVI(internal)?

I usually have good results with the MP4 format.

Another save bet would be to export as png sequence and export that from a NLE

[Jeremy Richard]

Hello Paul,

I exported you project and the same problem happens when playing it with VLC (also on Windows exporting from TVPaint Pro 11), but it seems to be fine either by

• playing it with mpv or Keyframe MP
• changing the "ouput" in VLC to Direct3D9 (this is where I read about the solution). You have to restart VLC to see its effect.

  

• or taking a snapshot from VLC and the snapshot looks fine, even though the video is not

To me it is maybe due to how VLC interprets the luminance of the video.

Does it do the same once you import the video in Vegas Pro?

As far as I can see you don't loose any colour information, the different shades are still in the image, it is just how each player is interpreting the luminance maybe.

MotionJPEG uses a YUV colour space as opposed to RGB. RGB colour space seems to be interpreted the same way by both players (VLC and MPV) but the YUV colour space is not.

I just tried exporting as RGB (24 bits) or RGBA (32 Bits) and the colours come out perfect; not too dark at all! HOWEVER, the file size is enormous - 254mb for a 1 second clip!

To my understanding, MotionJPEG it is basically jpeg images wrapped in a video file; each of your frames are saved as a jpeg file which then are wrapped in an AVI file.
Thus it uses a jpeg compression algorithm to compress each frame (a "lossy" type compression), while the RGB format is uncompressed (as far as I know) and thus making a RGB AVI file bigger than a MotionJPEG AVI.

And the A in RGBA stands for Alpha, and because you don't have transparent background (in this particular case) this just adds data to your video and makes your file bigger when you don't need it.

my version of SOny Vegas Pro 13 absolutely hates MOV file

If changing editing software is an option, you could maybe try with kdenlive or Resolve (the free version). Both can play mov files I generated from your project (except for the MOV PNG version which Kdenlive didn't play).

It looked like the Prores version was the closest to your original drawings, in terms of colour. And the file ended up being half the size of the MotionJPEG (that is just based on the short shot you shared).

*I tested with the paid version of Resolve but I don't think the limitation of the free version lies in what video formats it can play.

[Peter Wassink]

here are some settings..

it seems Avi directshow mjpeg is a good one... close to the lossless png mp4 and a bit smaller...
and looks good in VLC

compare export settings-halfsize.mp4

(15 MiB) Downloaded 145 times

[MightyOtaking]

here are some settings..

it seems Avi directshow mjpeg is a good one... close to the lossless png mp4 and a bit smaller...
and looks good in VLC

compare export settings-halfsize.mp4

Ah, thanks! That's a very informative video. It does seem like the directshow one or the mp4 option might be best.

Does it do the same once you import the video in Vegas Pro?

You know, I just checked and it actually looks perfectly fine in Vegas! And it exports out of Vegas looking fine too. It seems that it's a codec issue or something, but as long as it all looks OK in the final render then all's well!

If changing editing software is an option, you could maybe try with kdenlive or Resolve (the free version).

Sadly, Vegas has all of my filters and plugins and presets that I've built up over years, so I'm kind of stuck with it, otherwise I would just switch to exporting MOV files.