How to convert PNG files to Video?

Eyos

I want to render an animation as individual PNG files, and when finished, combine the files to a video file.
I looked around but can't seem to find how to do that. Any advice?
Thanks in advance.

argus1000

I normally use an editor like Premiere Pro. But, if you don't have, there is a handy little app at:
http://brekel.com/tools/

Jonstark

Philw turned me onto a free app called VirtualDub that (amongst other things) can take sequenced png and turn them into animation, over in the dynamic clothing thread

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/49954/

Just google VirtualDub and you should find it pretty easily.

Eyos

Thanks for the info! It helps a lot.

Dartanbeck

Instead of Premiere Pro, After Effects, or other expensive apps, I've found Sony Home Studio Line-up of products. When I got mine, it was the Movie Studio Platinum Suite, which was ten becks less than the Movie Studio Suite they sell as of this writing, but the new Movie Studio Suite comes with Acid Studio, and my suite didn't. So I bought Music Maker to make up for the lacking of Acid. But now I'm getting off track.

Movie Studio is cheap and is a fine tool for turning your renders into longer movie clips, even if they're sequenced image files. Then we can add sound, music, titles, images, etc., because it's basically a home version of the all-powerful Vegas.

I do animations. That's what drew me into using Carrara. Wanting to add post work and post effects, without having the immediate means to buy something like After Effects, I bought Project Dogwaffle Pro: Howler (Artist editios don't have this option), an amazing paint program that provides multitudes of animation features. After using it for a while, I've discovered that we may open sequences of images and save them to avi,and the other way round as well. It also has many animated features that can save loads of render time - render simple, apply the effects and such in Howler, etc.,

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I should also tell you that Carrara can also open it's own files and covert them! ;)
Sure! If you save a rendered animation as sequenced png, you can then open that png sequence in the render room, and "Save As" avi or GIF!

Eyos

Thanks Dartanbeck, I think I'll follow your last advice to save sequenced files in Carrara, and then open and save it back as AVI. It seem the simplest way for me.
I'll add the sounds to my animation in a video editing program (I use Corel Video Studio which seems nice and does not cost a lot).

Dartanbeck

Eyos said:

I'll add the sounds to my animation in a video editing program (I use Corel Video Studio which seems nice and does not cost a lot).

Right... that's along the same lines as the Sony softy I mentioned above. I recently bought that one myself, but haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet. I have a feeling that it might be able to open sequenced image files as well. Check around in their tutorials videos/pages and if you don't find it, try asking them. I have used my Corel VideoStudio Pro for screen capturing, and I love it. Now to settle in and try the rest of what it has to offer.

I've decided to NOT turn off the pop-ups that happen when I open and close the app, because it has direct links to free plugins and tutorials and such. Being a newbie to it still (as well as PaintShop Pro) I leave them run for now. I don't have the latest (but I really want to upgrade when I can for the new 64 bit goodness) and I still find free things for my apps in those pop-ups! Pretty cool! But maybe they were there all along, and I didn't get them the first time(s) around? Who knows? Very cool softy though!

Jonstark

I'm going to ask a stupid question, but according to the manual, Carrara can also add sound in the sequencer as well. So is there something stopping me from creating an animation, then using a music track from a cd I ripped and converted into a wav for example and just doing to the audio matching to the clip right in carrara, to be created as part of the final render? As I've never done anything like this, I'm assuming there's more to the process that would mean most would not do this directly in Carrara, but from what I read I can add as many sound files as I want right in Carrara as part of the animation, so I thought I would ask if I've got that right or not.

Eyos

Jonstark said:

I'm going to ask a stupid question, but according to the manual, Carrara can also add sound in the sequencer as well. So is there something stopping me from creating an animation, then using a music track from a cd I ripped and converted into a wav for example and just doing to the audio matching to the clip right in carrara, to be created as part of the final render? As I've never done anything like this, I'm assuming there's more to the process that would mean most would not do this directly in Carrara, but from what I read I can add as many sound files as I want right in Carrara as part of the animation, so I thought I would ask if I've got that right or not.

Well, it is the natural way to add sounds to animation within Carrara. I've used it and it works great.
The reason I want to create a sequenced bitmaps and convert them later to AVI is simple:
If the animation is long (can take days sometimes) there is a risk that due to power failure (or some other reason), the computer might shut down during rendering (even with UPS). If you render to AVI you will have to start over again. If you render to sequenced bitmaps, you can start rendering again from where it failed. In short animations I prefer to add sounds in Carrara, but now I render a long one and had a couple of electricity issues where I live.

evilproducer

Jonstark said:

I'm going to ask a stupid question, but according to the manual, Carrara can also add sound in the sequencer as well. So is there something stopping me from creating an animation, then using a music track from a cd I ripped and converted into a wav for example and just doing to the audio matching to the clip right in carrara, to be created as part of the final render? As I've never done anything like this, I'm assuming there's more to the process that would mean most would not do this directly in Carrara, but from what I read I can add as many sound files as I want right in Carrara as part of the animation, so I thought I would ask if I've got that right or not.

As Eyos mentioned, length can be an issue.

Most popular music is in the 2.5 to 3.5 minute range for radio playability. CDs will sometimes have longer versions. That's an awful long time for a single Carrara scene.

The audio placed in Carrara's timeline can help to sync the action to the visuals, but remember, Carrara is not a video editor. It is a 3D creation and rendering suite.

You would be better off breaking the music into shorter sections and building the scene(s) around that. Better yet, listen to the song, think about what it says to you and how to visually interpret it. Do you want a singer lipsyncing it? What about close-ups? Long shots? Cut-aways? Other visuals? Story boarding, even if it is just stick figures can help to visualize the sequences. The audio helps to sync the video to the audio, but the final mix is best done in a video editor.

Jonstark

Thanks guys, I knew there was something obvious I was missing :) Like I said, I haven't done much animation, nothing with audio at all, so I just wasn't picturing the workflow right, but from your explanations I can see why it would be better and more efficient to put the video and audio pieces together later in a video editor and render each small sub-scene separately rather than try to coordinate one long scene with multiple cameras and viewpoints and audiotracks.

evilproducer

Absolutely. Use smaller audio clips in Carrara to help sync action to audio, and not just for lip-sync.