8 Bit / 16 Bit

[Animark]

Hello,

is it right that TVPaint works with 8 Bit per color channel in RGB? One of our students is working on a stop motion project with 16 Bit per channel and liked to use TVPaint to manipulate the timing of his animations. We tested a little bit but it seems that in this case TVPaint is not the right tool for his operations. Is that correct?

Thanks from Animark

[slowtiger]

TVP only handles 8bit. But what does he need 16bit for? That's just the camera RAW file. I wonder which output format he wants to use, and which program for editing.

Anyway, he still could use TVP for just timing the scenes, as long as he keeps track of his changes and is able to reproduce it with his original footage.

[Animark]

Yes we made a test and compared 16 Bit and 8 Bit after imported to and exported from TVPaint. There are differences in quality - he is working with very smooth images where light and colors plays an important role. In this special case the 16 Bit makes sense - maybe 10 Bit could be enough.

[ematecki]

As long as you stay uncompressed...

If the final product is an divx, it will anyway be converted in 8 bits/component...
And if he isn't aware of that final quality loss, he may end very disgussed by this "oh so much better than film" digital technology !

So, you should make output tests to the final format to see "what is left" of all that subtle lighting.

[Animark]

Yes, he stays uncompressed till the end. The final product will be a 35mm film copy.

[ematecki]

Then it makes sense to stay 16 bits all thru the pipeline...

[slowtiger]

Well, I guess he's using a digital still camera? Then he should treat the project just as any non-linear editing job:
- keeping all the RAW files, numbered strictly individually
- put them into a small TVP project and do the timing
- keep track of all changes - X-sheets on paper will do
- do the editing in any video editor
- take one image of each scene, do some colour correction (again, save all settings), the do a test exposure
- repeat if cecessary
- copy the RAW files, throw out unused, batch-jpob colour corrections scene by scene, re-number for exposure

[Animark]

Hi Slowtiger,

thanks for your workflow suggestions. That is the way he is working, but he has some image manipulation in some scenes. We tried TVPaint, because its more comfortable for him to do the manipulations in TVPaint than with photoshop and/or after effects.

[slowtiger]

I just sent my last film to get exposed onto 35mm, as one numbered sequence of PNG files. The guy did some test exposures (but made a mistake, so I had to guess the output) and mentioned that he had to transfer the files one more time, to TGA. The funny part is that TGA in itself doesn't offer any better bit resolution:

The format can store image data with 8, 16, 24, or 32 bits of precision per pixel[1] – the maximum 24 bits of RGB and an extra 8-bit alpha channel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truevision_TGA)

The only advance over PNG might be the inclusion of a gamma value. But again you will achieve the same result, no matter wether you use the correct gamma in transferring RAW to 24bit RGB, or apply the gamma while exposing from TGA to film.

In the end it's exactly the same amount of work and testing, so I decided to not bother about other formats but stick to PNG. However, it is a good idea to do colour tests right at the point of designing characters and backgrounds, especially when using some extremes, like very dark images, very light ones, or some hues which can get tricky in RGB. Don't forget that there will be another step of colour timing in the lab!

[Paul Fierlinger]

When I went to filmout I remember the technicians made a series of tests between two sets of PNGs; generated in Vegas, and generated in TVP. Everyone was astonished by the superior quality of the TVP PNGs and they took less space, on top of which TVP rendered the sequences at double the speed of Vegas. The technicians had tested other formats I made for them prior to these PNG tests, but the PNG always came out on top.
But 35mm film never looks as good as digi beta. Projected from digi beta the film always looks just like our images on our computer monitors, no matter what the size of the screen. The worst screenings we ever experienced were at Annecy. So in the end, no matter how much attention you may spend on filmout (and expenses) the theater projectionists and their equipment have the final word.

[Animark]

It's interesting to hear that PNGs gives such good results. I worked most with TIFF or TGA, I should give PNG a chance next time, I never thought on it as a high end format. Isn't PNG the short cut for Portable Network Graphic? Maybe the name brought me to think on it as a "low level" format. Now I've read that it also suports 16 Bit per channel. Wow.

However, my student have his workflow already and he did a lot of tests together with his stop motion camera man and our school specialist for all digital film questions, so I think they found reasons why they use the 16 Bit. I've also seen the differences. I wanted to help him to optimize his workflow with TVPaint, but I never would change his running system at all - that wouldn't help him with his film. For editing and color corrections and so on we have a 2K flame system the students can use.

And, yes, it's an old problem and an experience everybody makes, when seeing own filmwork on different screens and in different theatres. You will never get the result you expected - sometimes it's better, most times not. Also with Digi Beta. We have 4 screening rooms at filmschool and every beamer screens a little bit different. Sometimes our students tries to find the best way to get optimal results for their productions. They have technical possibilities at school most will never could use later outside. They want to know and learn how to make it really high end, all the more when they spend often more than a year on their films. To make compromises and to find the best solution for every individual project is something, they only start to learn at school - but I know, they will learn outside when they have to stay in budgets.

This is all independent from the opinion, that at first the story makes a good film - and maybe in the middle or end the 8 or 16 Bit things. To modify Balthasar Garcián: Its better to be cheatet by the pixel than in the quality of the story.

[Paul Fierlinger]

It was later explained to me by some tech gurus that PNG looks so good with animation the way it would never turn out for live action camera shots, thus the humble PNG never got its deserved accolades.