To make the most of this, I'll be using Cwoke's DDC8 which is known for its high amount of detail. These are the dimensions:
In cases where the dimensions give exactly a 16:9 ratio, any side (height or width) can be used. This animation isn't exactly 16:9, which means we need to use the side which is biggest. If we don't, we'll end up with an image that's too big. So to find the side that's biggest, we enter in one of the numbers in an aspect ratio calculator.
I entered in the width as "600". This gives a pixel height of "337.50" for a 16:9 ratio. 340 is larger than 337.50, and means that Cwoke's DDC8 isn't exactly 16:9. It's higher than it is wide. We know the side we need to use, which is the height.
Now to find how to export it at the resolution we want, we use this little equation:
Height or width needed ÷ height or width we have.
So for this animation, we don't just want 720p or even 1080p... We want crazy 4k sharp. 4k dimensions are 3840 width, 2160 height (this is where 2160p comes from). So...
2160 ÷ 340 = 635
With this number, we have just found the percentage we need to export at for the 4k resolution.
We'll be re-sizing at 635%... (Absolutely crazy!) Hopefully Pivot doesn't nope out on us.
Super Sampling is at 4 (for the anti-aliasing) and compressing so our file size isn't ridiculous. When the compression window popped up, I selected the Lagarith Lossless Codec in the drop-down menu (recommended by Peter Bone himself).
Now to export... It worked and it took 7 minutes, 47 seconds. File size:
Performance:
Now for a comparison with 1080p. 1080 ÷ 340 = 318
It took significantly less time at 2 minutes, 2 seconds. But this is no surprise considering it's 4 times as less pixels that have to be rendered. File size:
Not as significant of a reduction in the file size, but still more than halved. I thought it would have been 4 time less personally, but there you go. So 4k = 47.4MB, 1080p = 22.3MB.
Performance:
So in terms of performance, it looks like the CPU was utilised exactly the same between the 4k and 1080p exports. The thing which saw a difference was the memory utilisation, with 3GB RAM used for 4k (38% total RAM) and 2.2GB (28%) for the 1080p version. As far as I know Pivot doesn't use the GPU. For reference, when I render in Premiere (which uses the GPU as well) render times are ten times as fast.
But another thing to consider is that the CPU performance stayed the same for both exports, so maybe a limit with Pivot meant the CPU couldn't be utilised more.
What is better?
4k, obviously since it's a bigger resolution. But let's just check a single frame from both versions:
First, 1080p:
http://i.imgur.com/xR1iS18.png
4k:
http://i.imgur.com/0SHevl9.png
That's not right, is it? Surely I got the versions muddled up? Well, take a look:
1080p
(if you're wondering why it's 1084, sometimes Pivot's just weird or I rounded up something when I wasn't meant to :( )
4k
So as you can see, the 4k version actually looks worse on my 900p monitor. There is more aliasing (jaggies) on the 4k image. Maybe super sampling needs to be bumped up to 8 if you do 4k? I have no idea, but you can't go above super sampling 4 for Pivot anyway.
In conclusion, I'd say you're actually better off exporting in 1080p still.
- Most people don't have 4k monitors or TVs (yet...)
- Animation is still either 720p (for TV) and 1080p (movies)
- Long render times
- Bigger file size
- Actually looks worse somehow
Want the best quality? Then without a doubt use 1080p. None-the-less, this was all pretty interesting to me and I thought I'd share with you guys. :D
Oh, and of course what is this thread without the actual videos themselves?
