One of the most important aspects of animation and 3D modeling is video quality…right?
Now since Cinema 4D is a CPU intensive program when exporting, it’s important to know what settings are necessary in order to have a good rendering time while also retaining optimal video quality. In this video, I’ll walk you through on what gives you the best quality, and different ways you can reduce your file sizes in your videos and animations!
Before we start, I’ll walk you through on what the 3 rendering icons do (you should see the orange buttons grouped together towards the top of the screen).
The first button is the Render in Active View, which is basically a quick pre-render of a frame in your animation. This will allow you to preview what a single frame in the animation will look like after you export it.
The second button is the Render in Picture View, which I like to call the export button because this is what you click to render out your video!
The last button is the render settings, which brings us to the first step of this tutorial.
1. When you click on the render settings icon, a new window should pop up. Under the “Output” section, this is where you alter the resolution, framerate, and the aspect ratio of your video. Usually when I render videos out in this program, I always go with 720p. So input 1280 for width and 720 for height. Under Film aspect (I’m assuming you would want to upload the file to youtube), set it to “HDTV (16:9).”
2. Since Cinema 4D individually renders out each frame in the video, rendering times are usually dependent on what frame rate you render at. The lowest possible frame rate you choose is one of the factors that will improve rendering times. Select the frame rate box, and input the value 24.
[wp_ad_camp_4]
3. Lastly, how many frames you want your video to be. If you know how long you want your video to be in terms of seconds, it’s easy to calculate how many frames you would need to input. For an example, I want my animation to be 10 seconds long. I would take the value 10 and multiply it by 24 (the frame rate I’m using), which results in 240 frames. Easy math right? Input 240 frames into the section under “To.” In the section “From” make sure it is on 0.
4. You’re almost done! Go to the “Save” section. Under format, click the drop down menu. If you already have Quicktime installed, you should see a list of Quicktime presets. Select “Quicktime Movie” for best quality and optimal file size. Click on options, then a new window should appear. For compression type, set it to H.264. Under Frames per second, set it to 24. Make sure to keyframe every 24 frames as well. Now for compressor, here you have a little freedom on whether or not if you want the highest video quality with a long render time, or a lower quality with a faster rendering time. If you set the indicator to around medium, I assure you that the final video quality will NOT to be horrible. It’ll still retain its HD look, but won’t be as sharpened as opposed to if you set it to best. If you have a computer that’s a little slow, I recommend that you set the indicator on Medium. Click ok.
5. Click on the button next to “File.” Choose the destination or folder you want to save the video in. Name the file, then hit save. Exit out of the render settings window and click on the Render in Picture viewer to export your video! You’re done!
There are a few settings you can enable to give you the absolute best video quality (which aren’t necessary), so be sure to watch the video where I explain more about these settings such as Anti-Aliasing.