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Request for Advice on Animation Presets

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john

19 Apr, 2020 12:09 AM

Fellow NodeBox 3 users (and animation mavens),

The latest Mac OS, Catalina, has a 64-bit requirement that is currently preventing NodeBox 3 from exporting movies. You can get around this by using the Export Range option, but the NodeBox team would like to fix this issue as soon as possible.

To do that, we will have to upgrade the FFMPEG module and provide more modern presets. If any of you have opinions about this (formats to support, default frame rates, options to surface, etc.) please chime in! This may be a once-in-a-decade chance to improve NodeBox animation.

And Stefan, if you have any specific questions for the NodeBox community, you can ask them here.

Thanks!

John

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Stefan Gabriels on 19 Apr, 2020 08:58 AM

   

   Hey John

   I believe you forwarded this discussion to another Stefan instead of me. That said, I only just noticed Frederik already started working on a fix for this so I'm taking a step back so that I don't interfere with his work. Any input/recommendations are still welcome here of course.

   Kind regards,
   Stefan

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2. Support Staff 2 Posted by john on 19 Apr, 2020 10:08 AM

   

   Stefan(s),

   Oops. You're right - I meant to add Stefan Gabriels, not Stefan Torremans. My apologies to you both. But of course you are both free to join this conversation.

   Thanks everyone.

   John

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3. 3 Posted by pyfave on 03 Mar, 2021 11:12 PM

   

   i can perhaps help you here, with ffmpeg

   one big standard for video is prores quicktime .

   to encode a prores .mov with alpha i found this line
   ffmpeg -y -i filename.mov -r 29.97 -codec prores_ks -pix_fmt yuva444p10le -alpha_bits 16 -profile:v 4444 -f mov filenameb.mov

   just for inspiration , standard framerates would be 24, 25 or 29.97 or 30 or 60 ...

   but 12.5 or 8 can be used for animation .

   please make one preset for easy preview, and keep

   a viable option is to export a sequence of png files (with alpha) , it seems more future proof.

   have a nice day ,

   Py

   ffmpeg -y -i filename.mov -r 29.97 -codec prores_ks -pix_fmt yuva444p10le -alpha_bits 16 -profile:v 4444 -f mov filenameb.mov

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by john on 04 Mar, 2021 01:12 AM

   

   Hi Py,

   Thanks for the info. Since writing my original note, Frederik has released an update to Nodebox (3.0.52) that restores the previous export movie functionality. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to make any of the requested improvements, like an option for different frame rates.

   NodeBox still has the ability to export a sequence of PNG files (among other formats) with alpha, one for each frame. As you say, this is future proof.

   Frederik is listed as watching this thread and knows much more about fmfpeg than I do. If he ever does have time to make additional improvements he may find your preset suggestion helpful.

   John

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