Wolf's Rain: (Carry On) Wayward Son

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:11 pm

I noticed it without looking at the moon shot... O.o

Due to people drilling it in my head, AR is usually one of the first things I notice.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:32 pm

Phantasmagoriat wrote: I see what u did thar.
that makes things even more complicated. 720x480 is the resolution on regular dvd's, however during playback, it gets stretched to 720x540 [for 4:3 footage] or 853x480 [for 16:9 footage]. Since your amv doesn't have an AR flag set, it doesn't stretch, and stays at 720x480, which makes it feel funky imo, even if the image proportions are ~corrected for [640/450=1.4222 vs 720/480=1.5, which is still off by about 6% like you said...] As a rule of thumb you want your playback dimensions to divide to 1.3333 or 1.77777. This can be done either by resizing the footage itself, or simply by setting the AR flag when encoding; Or you could leave it this way, but it will make people like me scratch my head, and force 4:3 playback

About the video itself, it's not my fav from you, but it was still alright. Nice quality

I had never heard that the video got stretched like that during 4:3 playback. From what I understood from the EADfaq, the video was compressed to 640x480.
What I was aiming for was a dimension that would be approximately full-screen on monitors or wide-screen TVs, which is what I like to watch vids on.
I thought that there were a lot of vids made in these dimensions.

As for dragging scenes, I think what many of you may be referring to is the instrumental sequence about 2/3's of the way through, where the soldiers are fighting, and then the wolves join in.
If you'll notice, however, this sequence is actually composed of three different "movements", I would call them.
The first is the soldiers fighting one another, but then the music changes to an almost playful tone, and this is where I have the wolves come in, effortlessly picking people off, highlighted by the cub's scene where he startled one soldier into shooting his fellow soldier.
After that, the music turns serious and we see the wolves acting in a coordinated, pack-like fashion to disarm, unarmor and then kill one of Jagara's stormtroopers. (Earlier in the vid, we saw where one such trooper was able to fight off the wolves because of his armor.)
All of these scenes are related, but they have their own "personality", as does the music they are set to.

Phantasmagoriat · Post by **Phantasmagoriat** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 12:10 am

WesW wrote:I had never heard that the video got stretched like that during 4:3 playback. From what I understood from the EADfaq, the video was compressed to 640x480.
What I was aiming for was a dimension that would be approximately full-screen on monitors or wide-screen TVs, which is what I like to watch vids on.
I thought that there were a lot of vids made in these dimensions.

It depends on how your player displays it, but either way, during 4:3 playback, the length/width=1.333333. I've never seen a dvd where the dimensions stayed at 720x480 when watching [720/480=1.5 doesn't fill the whole screen]. That being said, you're right-- a lot of videos are done at 720x480, because it doesn't up/downscale the original quality. Now, if they are done correctly, that's a different issue. If so, the video should resize to proper proportions upon playback; If the AR flag isn't set, it stays as 720x480... and well... a lot of the time goes unnoticed because the proportions look quite close to 4:3... unlike a 720x480 video that is missing the 16:9 flag, which would appear squished from the left/right.

[examples I have with me--> Scintilla's latest amv is 4:3, which is 704x480, but plays at 704x528. ROS5 is 16:9, which is 720x480, but plays at 853x480]

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:43 pm

Btw, I am looking for beta-testers, if anyone is interested. No editing experience necessary; all I really need is a general opinion for what works or doesn't in a given vid, though of course the more detailed the critique the better.
Right now I am working on the second Wolf Cries vid, which is set to G~'n~R's Welcome to the Jungle, and will be most similar to my Guns~n~Revy vid, only faster.
I also have a romance vid that I finished a couple of months ago but haven't released because I want to get some opinions first. It's a remake of Every Time, and I feel that it's the best pure romance vid that I've made so far.
If anyone is interested, please PM me and let me know which vid you would like to have a look at.

Autraya · Post by **Autraya** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:19 pm

you could post links to the vids and make a beta request thread on the op exchange forum or go to the beta room on IRC i'm not sure what the room is called *mind like sive today <.> * but if you ask around #amv there will probably be someone awake who remembers.
I recommend Godix, WC, Lockstock, Radical_Yue, Eva_fan & Jaddziadax as beta testers though (you wont find some of them in there), but it's best to take bribes in with you.

*waits for the boot up the arse for dropping peoples names >.<*

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:15 pm

Autraya wrote:you could post links to the vids and make a beta request thread on the op exchange forum or go to the beta room on IRC i'm not sure what the room is called *mind like sive today <.> * but if you ask around #amv there will probably be someone awake who remembers.
I recommend Godix, WC, Lockstock, Radical_Yue, Eva_fan & Jaddziadax as beta testers though (you wont find some of them in there), but it's best to take bribes in with you.

*waits for the boot up the arse for dropping peoples names >.<*

Thanks, Autraya, I didn't know you could make beta threads in the op exchange forum.
I was hoping to attract some people who liked the kind of music that I use; people who had downloaded and liked some of my previous work, though it seems that most everyone who is interested has already checked out this thread.
I should finish Darcia's Descent today, so I'll make that request thread when I get finished. Btw, I've hardly been able to stop playing the vid ever since it was half-finished, I like it so much. I hope you'll take a look at it, since I think it's right up your alley. I don't know if I've ever been this excited about a vid, even Revy.

Omikami_Amaterasu · Post by **Omikami_Amaterasu** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:22 pm

hmm, the song didn't really work for me but that is just personal preference.

I think the editing is fairly solid although the internal sync feels a bit too loose at times for the viewer to really feel the beat. I don't mind the length of the shots (though some of them are a bit too long), but I feel the editing could be a bit tighter and if the shots do have to be long, play with the playback speed to get the internal syncs work better.

Overall good effort though, you picked some good scenes. ^_^

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:03 am

Omikami_Amaterasu wrote:hmm, the song didn't really work for me but that is just personal preference.

I think the editing is fairly solid although the internal sync feels a bit too loose at times for the viewer to really feel the beat. I don't mind the length of the shots (though some of them are a bit too long), but I feel the editing could be a bit tighter and if the shots do have to be long, play with the playback speed to get the internal syncs work better.

Overall good effort though, you picked some good scenes. ^_^

I'd be very interested to know which scenes you felt were out of sync. If there is one thing I think I have down, it's sync.
I sync to different things in different scenes, depending upon what I think is the dominant sound, and sometimes I'll sync to voice emphasis rather than line break if the singer isn't pausing on the breaks.

Omikami_Amaterasu · Post by **Omikami_Amaterasu** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:37 pm

when I said lack of sync I meant internal sync - that means what's going on inside the shots don't sync up to the beat of the music. this is different from external sync which is things like the timing of the cuts or transitions, or use of editor-added effects, etc.

take for example the scene around 0:44, when various shots of soldiers being taken down by the wolves are being played out. the moment when the soldiers are striken down don't match up to the rhythm of the music, and this results in the overall lack of energy of this amv (the music also isn't upbeat enough for some of the shots you picked, really... but still, the video could have been more effective if the syncing were a bit tighter)

There are some good internal syncs around 3:25, so I think you know the concept, just that it isn't always executed as well as it can be.

Again though, I think your musical choice just doesn't really sit well with me so just keep in mind criticisms are always subjective.

WesW · Post by **WesW** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:18 am

Omikami_Amaterasu wrote:when I said lack of sync I meant internal sync - that means what's going on inside the shots don't sync up to the beat of the music. this is different from external sync which is things like the timing of the cuts or transitions, or use of editor-added effects, etc.

take for example the scene around 0:44, when various shots of soldiers being taken down by the wolves are being played out. the moment when the soldiers are striken down don't match up to the rhythm of the music, and this results in the overall lack of energy of this amv (the music also isn't upbeat enough for some of the shots you picked, really... but still, the video could have been more effective if the syncing were a bit tighter)

There are some good internal syncs around 3:25, so I think you know the concept, just that it isn't always executed as well as it can be.

Again though, I think your musical choice just doesn't really sit well with me so just keep in mind criticisms are always subjective.

It seems that the problem here is that I was synching to the actions of the wolves, specifically their appearance in the scene, and not the strikes. If you look at the scene with Heigi (the one in yellow), the sync is to his entry into the scene and then to his jump. If the wolves had made distinct attack moves, then I would've probably synched to those, but since they didn't I picked what I felt was the dominant, quick movement, and that was the entry of the wolves on the cut.
I have a lot more internal sync in Darcia's Descent, so maybe you'll like that vid more.