Make your movies into Smooothies

We have developed a few methods for creating jaw-dropping animations over the years. I will
start with the easiest and most fool-proof method and second describe David's (ATS) method,
it results in better quality movies at a smaller filesize but requires more steps.
* these guides were written for Pointools Edit, so some terminology has changed.
Method 1: Easy AVI - 7 steps
Here's a quick and easy way to create a good looking AVI direct from Pointools
1. Go to: http://www.xvid.org
2. Download and install the xvid application (works for both 32 and 64 bit)
3. Open Bentley Pointools V8i
4. Create your animation path using the Animation Wizard
5. Open Timeline Options and set resolution to: HDTV (1280 x 720), press OK
6. Open Render Settings and:
a) set the output to video (using tick box),
b) press the browse key and choose a name and location for the AVI,
c) set the codec to 'XVID',
d) go into the options, using the button next to the codec, and choose the XVID HD 720 profile, and
set the target quantiser to 5 (smaller number on slider = bigger file
& better quality)
e) set the quality to 'antialiased'
7. Press Render!
Method 2: Codec settings for high-def movies
I'm working at ATS (Advanced Technical Solutions in Sweden) and spend lots of time with Pointools
and creating
high quality animations/movies for our customers. I would like to share this knowledge to improve
your work but
also the Pointools reputation when your movies are spread around the world. When it comes to the
animation part
in pointools it's not very clear how to create these movies in the best way. There are a lot of codecs
and settings
available and my knowledge is based on years of "trial and error" to find the best settings.
It is not easy to find a good codec when encoding movies, especially not for scan points. You want
high resolution,
good quality and small file size at the same time. Pointclouds are very special compared to regular
movies because
each pixel is unique (no large flat areas) and so far I have only found two codecs that can handle
scan points at high
resolutions with relative small file sizes.
For a long time I have used windows media video (wmv) with a variable bitrate at 65% of max
quality. This works
fine for both 1280x720 and 1920x1080 but the later creates enormous files and playback problems.
For lower
resolutions I have used divx or xvid (a bitrate of 5000 kbit/s for 960x540 is perfect, see picture).

Now I have found an ever better codec, the open source x264 which is used by everyone today
when
encoding bluray movies and other high resolution content. This works great on pointclouds also!
I write this manual if you want to crate super high quality movies at resolutions above 960x540 and
still
playable on most PCs. (Links are found at the bottom)
Install k-lite mega codec pack and be sure to include the x264 vfw encoder (not default). Also
include
media player classic, this is the best player I know.

Install the open source video editing program virtual dub. Also the best free video program I know.
Render a movie in pointools as jpeg images with a resolution of 1920x1080 (no motion blur). For
best result,
always use this resolution; even if your final result is lower. At this resolution you need to activate
full screen
mode before you start to render to not crop the movie. If your screen resolution is lower then
1920x1080,
then you must use antialiasing or a lower resolution (maybe 1600x900).

Delete the first image in the output series (this is a dummy image)
Open virtual dub and drag n drop the first image and the rest will follow. Go to video\frame
rate\change
frame rate to the same as in pointools animation settings (30 f/s). You can set a default value in
virtual dub
settings/images.

If you want a lower resolution, then use video/filter/resize. For example 1920x1080 to 1280x720 or
960x540.

Choose video/full processing mode

Now the most important part. Go to video/compression/x264vfw => configure

It should look like this:

I use 12000 kbit/s for 1280x720 movies and 30000 for fullHD (1920x1080). If you use motion blur
then
8000 resp. 20000 is enough. This setting will control the file size and is much lower for regular
movies. For
points it must be high because there are so much more unique pixels
I also use single pass because I cant see any difference with multi-passes. I can show how to do
that in
virtual dub as well if you want.
(For screen capturing in other software at 1280x720@15 frames/s I use 30000 kbit/s with
preset=very fast
and fast decode and output file. Then I recompress the movie in virtual dub at 2000 kbit/s with
preset=very
slow.)
Encode your movie by file/save as AVI. (The standard container for x264 is .mkv but .avi will work in
most
media players I think)
Open your file in media player classic. For others to play this file they must have x254 decoder
installed. I
recommend installing the ffdshow package (also included in k-lite).
Links:
K-lite: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_l ... c_pack.htm

ffdshow: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ffdshow.htm
Virtual dub: http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/
By
David Johansson
http://ats.se

Method 3:
How to Make your Movies into Smoooothies
Movies with point clouds can suffer from a fair bit of flicker which is not so nice. Luckily this is not
too difficult to solve.
If you take a look at the Demo Movie in the gallery you'll see that its almost completely flicker free,
its also very nice and sharp. This was achieved using the steps outlined below, so read on!
If you render in final mode the quality is higher and includes anti-aliasing. However it does tend to
take its time and the draft renderer is much faster. The draft renderer does not include anti-aliasing
so the trick is to render out at a higher resolution and then down sample. So for high quality
rendering try:
1. Increasing the point size to 2 or more.
2. Rendering out twice the resolution you need. So render 1280 x 1024 for a 640 x 480
movie. In draft movie you will be limited to the size of the viewport. You can collapse the
side bar down and all the toolbars too to increase the viewport size. You'll be able to
render full screen in the next release by using a shortcut when in fullscreen mode.
3. Use Motion Blur! It makes a huge difference. The higher you can set it the better - this
will depend on the time you have available for rendering.
4. Always render to a stills sequence using a non-lossy format such as tga (never jpg!).
You can render to a movie file at the same time, but use this as a preview only.
5. Import the stills sequence into Adobe After Effect, Autodesk Combustion or whatever
editing / compositing package you use. If you're not using a compositing package and
don't want to spend alot, there are a few cheap options available. Just Google around for
'compositing software' and see what you can find. If you'd like some feedback on a
package post your link / question here and I'll try to help out.
6. Resize the movie to half the rendered size and render out your compressed
version. I find the XviD compressor gives the best results vs. size.

Faraz Ravi