video issues with XSI Modtool

ru4it

I'm using the Mod tool version of Softimage and for a 3 second animation the file is 95mb! So my question is: How can I reduce the file size so that other people and download and scrub through the animation?

ZacD

Are you asking how to compress a video or how to compress the file size for the scene?

ru4it

How to reduce the file size.

PredatorGSR

Usually when you compress 3d files using a zip archive or similar compression you get pretty huge size reductions. I just zipped a maya file and it was roughly 1/4 of the original size.

Also, I don't know the equivalent in XSI, but running the Optimize tool in Maya will delete a lot of extra nodes and stuff that will save space.

cryrid

Scene Size:
The file size would probably only be that large if everything still has it's modeling history intact. You'll want to select anything static and hit the Freeze button (lower right corner, under Edit). For anything that is weighted to a rig, you'll want to hit the FreezeM button in order to keep the envelope weights in tact.

You could also just export the meshes that are animated to .xsi/collada/.fbx/ or use pointoven, which would get rid of any extra data people wouldn't need to see. This leaves a light file which can be opened in other programs as well.



Video Size:
The default for rendering is an uncompressed codec (usually animation or video), that ends up leaving frames around 1+mb (and you probably have 30fps). This is great if you need to load the video into other programs (editing, etc) without having a loss in quality, but results in large file sizes.

You just need to use a different video codec. It's pretty easy to change, but the steps to do it depend on how you're creating the video in Mod-Tool.

Viewport Capture:
Change the format to either .avi or Quicktime (.mov). I prefer the latter. You'll then be able to change the codec. H.264 and MPEG-4 work well and will immediately compress the file to a much smaller size. You can get even better results if you play with the quality slider, or limit its data rate to a specified size.

Flipbook:
Render your frames off to .pic format, and load them with XSI's flipbook (found in the same start menu, and I think in Application/Bin). When you go to export them, you'll be able to chose the format and codec you desire.

FXTree:
If you're using XSI's FXTree, just plug the frames into a fileoutput and you'll find the options for it's format/codec in the PPG before exporting.

ru4it

cryrid wrote: »

Scene Size:
The file size would probably only be that large if everything still has it's modeling history intact. You'll want to select anything static and hit the Freeze button (lower right corner, under Edit). For anything that is weighted to a rig, you'll want to hit the FreezeM button in order to keep the envelope weights in tact.


Viewport Capture:
Change the format to either .avi or Quicktime (.mov). I prefer the latter. You'll then be able to change the codec. H.264 and MPEG-4 work well and will immediately compress the file to a much smaller size. You can get even better results if you play with the quality slider, or limit its data rate to a specified size.

Cryrid I did like you suggested and it cut the file size down to 333 kb. Thank you! U DA MAN!