[Sony Vegas] Pixels are getting rounded/blurred after render

[FruitBrute]

Hey there,
So what i would like to know is how to make Vegas to not render rounded/blurred/ pixels, heres an example:

Sample of original image before render:


Sample of rendered video:


Ive tried MainConcept AVC and Sony AVC; Best/Preview/Project Properties quality settings; 20 000 000 bitrate for 1080p render; image sequences have disabled resample; Motion Blur Type in Project Settings set to Gaussian/Box/Pyramid.

Ideas?

[budwzr]

Are the project properties set to the media? Is render quality set to "Best" in project properties?

Probably one of the templates you used has "Good" as the render quality. You should create and save a custom template to assure that the settings are always what you want. The stock templates always revert to default if not saved.

Go back through everything and double check it, meticulously. I've never seen this kind of thing happen otherwise.

The preview window is "Live" and in realtime. You can see the result before you render. Is it fuzzy in Preview/Full? The preview window takes everything into account including project settings.

[FruitBrute]

Are the project properties set to the media? Is render quality set to "Best" in project properties?

Probably one of the templates you used has "Good" as the render quality. You should create and save a custom template to assure that the settings are always what you want. The stock templates always revert to default if not saved.

Go back through everything and double check it, meticulously. I've never seen this kind of thing happen otherwise.

Theres difference in FPS as for Project Propertiest and Media (50fps/25fps) but ive tried synchronising it and the result is the same. Ive tried every render quality (Best/Preview/Use Project Properties)

I have my own custom templates saved and im using only these. What i did before saving them was selecting for example MainConcept AVC, then adjusting settings to what i need, then saved it with a custom name. Now i only need to pick them from the dropdown menu and the settings are exactly the same like after saved them.

The preview window is "Live" and in realtime. You can see the result before you render. Is it fuzzy in Preview/Full? The preview window takes everything into account including project settings.

Yes it "looks" fuzzy to me. Full window preview is totally broken, though, like if anti aliasing was forced for some reason.

I have a screenshot of my current settings in render/project properties/media as well as preview window - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/example3.PNG

[budwzr]

I see a velocity envelope on top track. Is there motion blur on that? Take that off and see what happens.

Your Preview Window is NOT messed up. It's showing you the result of your choices.

[FruitBrute]

Sorry, what do you mean by motion blur, how can i check that? Also there is a sequence of images on timeline without velocity envelope and pixels are also fuzzy in that one.

[budwzr]

Are you sure Smart Resampling is turned off on EVERY event?

Actually, the Velocity Envelope is probably not the problem because it looks like it's set to zero, like you turned it on but didn't use it yet.

Try turning various tracks on and off to see if the fuzzyness changes.

If you can pack up that project into a zip, with media, and let me get it, I will find the problem. Otherwise, I'm running out of ideas.

[FruitBrute]

Yes im sure every event has disabled resample, otherwise the image would be all black.

Time line + no velicity envelope event preview - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/example4.PNG

Rendered video if you fancy - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/ffstheme.7z

Edit: Missed your edit, i will try... theres a bit of a mess there though, let me at least remove a few things.

[budwzr]

Set the Preview Mode to Best, and take a PNG snap, then post it. Do it right there where it's at. Do you know how to make a snap of the preview window? It's the little disk icon.

[FruitBrute]

Preview mode to Best (Full) - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/example5.PNG

Project files - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/Inter%20movie.7z
If it matters, it should be D:\Inter movie\*files*
Note that the panning can be broken there, not sure whats the reason, so preview might not show exactly what is supposed to be shown (the camera position). Its probably due to some images being cut to resolution other than 1920x1080, but it shouldnt be related to the problem im describing in the topic.

[budwzr]

Let me take a look....

The problem is you used Pan/Crop to zoom way in on small details. You can't do that without creating extreme pixelation. It's like you amplify a car radio to 1000 watts and it just shreds it.

You need to study up on pixel resolution as it pertains to enlargements.

[FruitBrute]

Allright, thanks a lot for all the help!

[poisondeathray]

For the white pixels, to retain sharp pixel edges / pixel art look, you need to use "nearest neighbor" (aka "point") resizing algorithm when doing enlargements or resizing . I don't think vegas has control over that

The colored pixels, like red, are more difficult to keep the pixel art look - if you use 4:2:0, they can loose their sharpness from chroma subsampling (e.g. when you were using AVC sony or mainconcept), regardless of the resizing algorithm used. For colored pixels , you need to use RGB or YUV 4:4:4 (unsubsampled chroma)

[budwzr]

This is what he's doing.

[poisondeathray]

eg.

Here is a 1:1 crop of one of the source files


4x enlargement using "bicubic", this is similar to what vegas uses at default


Same thing, but with "nearest neighbor"


"nearest neighbor", but converted to 4:2:0 (and back to RGB for the PNG), notice the red eyes are less crisp


If I'm not mistaken, he wants to retain the pixel art / DOS emulation look

[poisondeathray]

Try setting the quality to "draft" in vegas, or the lowest one available

The point sampling is what you want for the sharp lines/pixel look (looks terrible on "Normal" footage")

Quality: Best
Scaling: bi-cubic/integration
Field Handling: on
Field Rendering: on (setting dependent)
Framerate Resample/IFR: on (switch dependent)

Quality: Good
Scaling: bi-linear
Field Handling: on
Field Rendering: on (setting dependent)
Framerate Resample/IFR: on (switch dependent)

Quality: Preview
Scaling: bi-linear
Field Handling: off
Field Rendering: off
Framerate Resample/IFR: always off

Quality: Draft
Scaling: point sample
Field Handling: off
Field Rendering: off
Framerate Resample/IFR: always off

https://forums.creativecow.net/archivethread/24/402526

[budwzr]

I think your Nearest Neighbor resize idea is right on target. Good call.

I liken this situation to someone looking through multiple telescopes inline. Yeah, the range increases, but...

[jagabo]

Rather than zooming into small images start with large images. Ie, upscale your sources with a point resize filter (or other sharp resizing filter) first. Then shrink/zoom/pan those images.

[FruitBrute]

Holy... thats amazing, guys. I will look into it.

[FruitBrute]

Holy... thats amazing, guys. I will look into it.

I just tried the Draft quality for render - pixel look is satysfying, but is there any way to get rid of frames overlaping while camera is moving? Green parts are kind of wrong too; please take a look at rendered video https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/ffsthemex2.7z

If Vegas is poor on its own to handle these, can i import the project somewhere else where it would work better?

Rather than zooming into small images start with large images. Ie, upscale your sources with a point resize filter (or other sharp resizing filter) first. Then shrink/zoom/pan those images.

Can you elaborate on that one, ie. what should i use and if i can do it for all the frames at once instead upscaling every single one separately?

[poisondeathray]

Holy... thats amazing, guys. I will look into it.

I just tried the Draft quality for render - pixel look is satysfying, but is there any way to get rid of frames overlaping while camera is moving? Green parts are kind of wrong too; please take a look at rendered video https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43525724/ffsthemex2.7z

Clarify what you mean by "overlapping frames" during camera movement. Did you mean duplicate frames ? If so, they look to be the result of your panning and your source framerate. You would need to clean up and retime the keyframes and/or redo the source animation at 50. (notice the image source runs at 25, but your project runs at 50. This means there are points in the camera animation where there will be duplicates)

If you mean some of the pixels shift or grow (in some frames a single "dot" is 1 wide, in others it might "grow" to 2).


You would need to quantize or constrain the animation and scaling factor by even multiples, as well as quantize the animation of camera and/or scaling. This will obviously make the animation more jerky. It's the way "nearest neighbor" works - you can only do it "perfectly" by even multiples 2x, 4x. You don't have subpixel scaling and interpolation with "nearest neighbor" - it snaps to full pixels. (e.g. 1.75 pixels would "snap" to 2). With other interpolation kernals you might get intermediate "shades" of grey to help with representation, but that means more blurry edges as you saw before with bicubic. Another possible way around this is to redo the animation as a vector image (e.g. SVG, AI, EPS, etc...). Vectors can scale infinitely without losing sharpness

Green parts are kind of wrong too

Clarify what you mean by "green parts are kind of wrong too". In what way ? Be more specific

If Vegas is poor on its own to handle these, can i import the project somewhere else where it would work better?

You can't really import .veg vegas project files into other software , but it's possible to redo the aninmation in other software

Rather than zooming into small images start with large images. Ie, upscale your sources with a point resize filter (or other sharp resizing filter) first. Then shrink/zoom/pan those images.

Can you elaborate on that one, ie. what should i use and if i can do it for all the frames at once instead upscaling every single one separately?

You could do that with avisynth for example, or vdub, or any batch image editor, even ffmpeg can do it. The problem with doing it that way is large image sequences are "heavy" and more "unwieldy" to animate, take more resources and memory. It's more efficient to use smaller footprint

However, if you do it that way, it might be "good enough" using different scaling algorithm so you get smoother animation without the pixel size changes (edges might be sharp enough for you, with the subpixel interpolation when scaling down a large factor)

[FruitBrute]

Okay then. You pretty much covered everything i needed so i will follow your hints and try to find the solution on my own now, thanks a lot again!