Scene Building - Aspect Ratio
Gemini Queen
Posts: 263
This is just a conversational post about scene building with one actual question in it. I'm trying to better my skills through researchign of cinematography and photogrphy. The youtube video I watched was this -
I'm doing some research on cinematography (youtube videos) because I want to make better renders and at some point, animations/games/etc. While watching the videos and listening to people explain things, they started talking about aspect ratios and how they effect the scene. In this instant, they were talking about 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 Primarily. What I learned was this -
The 1.85:1 is generally used for close up shots to chracters, object or anything else that the artist is trying to draw the readers attention to. 2.35:1 on the other hand is meant for wider shots to show more to the viewer and let them see everything as a whole. I went through Daz and checked out the Dimensions and noted that both of those dimensions are in there, and they look just as the video entails.
They did go into detail about some of the other dimensions in cinema and hwo they can effect a scene, but what I really liked about it were the 4 questions that you should consider when picking a aspect ratio.
What is the Genre?
What is the level of realism to your work?
What kind of setting do you have? (How important is it to the work?)
How are the relationships of the characters going to be effected by the aspect ratio?
I think they're pretty nifty and when considering my own stories that I want to create, it makes a lot more sense (sort of) and I, again, just thought it would be a great thing to share with the Daz community for anyone else out there who might find it useful to read or if it's soemthing that they've actually being struggling with. Although, I do have an actual question.
A lot of the Daz3D videos that I've watched (hundreds at this point) and articles/blogs that I've read always preach "Render in HD or higher for the best quality render!" They're not wrong, as I've done the test to see which ones come out better, and the ones in HD always do. However, if I wanted to change the aspect ratio, how would I do that while still maintaining that "HD Render" level of quality? Ofcourse, I could always change the size of the image in post work (GIMP personally) but changing the size does change the level of quality, so I'm at the same square I started at. Any thoughts or comments on this would be great. Again, I just though it would be a great conversation to have or a good tidbit of information to read
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Comments
Movies (generally) don't mix aspect ratio. They're either shot in 1.85:1 or 2.35:1.
You can easily verify this by how big the black bars are on an HDTV, which has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1.
1.85:1
2.35:1
The aspect ratio is just that: a ratio. To get the width from the height, multiply it by either 1.85 or 2.35. To get the height from the width, divide it.
If you want to render in HDTV dimensions (1920x1080), then it's 1920x1037 or 1920x817.
That said, in the camera settings, Daz Studio will lock the dimensions unless you uncheck "Constrain Proportions". So you just select an aspect ratio and type your desired width or height, and it'll automatically calculate the other value.
The thing is, movies are a point in time? One kind of storytelling, and not necessarily the ideal.
A lot of people shoot in iPhone, with a vertical layout/ratio. Realism could be a Tik Tok these days, and Hollywood might not be the best judge.
Also, Visual Novels are another storytelling tool. Those also inform/define some of my Daz work. So, 1080p (1920x1080) is pretty common, I guess.
EDIT: VN work isn't just 1080p, though, because there are lots of characters (floating PNG/WEBP) that you can just overlay, or buttons, or reactions/faces. Rendering everything out in 1080p is okay, but it's a waste of time if you plan your work properly.
I generally always do 1080p either landscape or portrait, most of the time. Nothing else really looks right to me. Now when I am doing a SciFi set, on the other hand, I d0 2560x1080 (21:9) and place the finished render on a 1440p black background giving it the letterbox look. The only issue is "cluttering" your scenes when doing such a wide format so it doesn't look empty.
If you're in the United States then I think you should just do 16:9 aspect ratio, because it seems like most of the viewing screens have that aspect ratio.
What are you going to use your renders for?
Most social media sites have optimum (or absolute) aspect ratios for viewing on their platforms. Instagram used to be 1:1 (a square). Twitter, Facebook, etc. all have different rules about image dimensions and aspect ratios.
Most Print-on-Demand services have a limited selection of printing paper - and the aspect ratio of your render has to match the aspect ratio of the paper, otherwise your render gets cropped to fit into the paper's aspect ratio. To simplify - if your printer had only 8x10 paper, then if you have a render that doesn't match that 4:5 aspect ratio, then your render has to be cropped to fit it.
If you're rendering images for TV or movie theatre screens, then the aspect ratio of your renders has to match those specific aspect ratios. Even movies like Gone With the Wind had to be cropped to fit more modern movie theatre screens,
On TV, if the aspect ratio of your image doesn't match that of the specific TV, you get those annoying black borders either on both sides of the image, or on the top and bottom of the image.
Now that we have foldable cell phones, we have new optimum aspect ratios for that.
In movies, the exact same aspect ratio is used for EVERY shot in the movie, regardless of whether the shot is a close up of a face, or the Grand Canyon. The aspect ratio doesn't affect the appearance of the subject matter. That is controlled by the focal length.
Don't confuse aspect ratio with focal length.
Most of the aspect ratios of movies were gimmicks to lure the public away from TV in the 1950s and 60s - like Cinerama, Vista-Vision etc.
The aspect ratio of Movie theatre screens and of all the other mediums and platforms CHANGE as time goes by.
What I do is set up my DAZ Studio scene, and then SAVE the whole scene file. Then, I make DUPLICATES of that file when I want a render with a different aspect ratio, or resolution. NEVER change your original DAZ Studio scene file. ALWAYS make a duplicate, and give the duplicate the same name as the original scene file BUT add an identifying number or letter after the name. Like: old_west_town.duf, then make an exact duplicate and name the file old_west_town_2.duf . That way you can always make renders in ANY aspect ratio when you want from a duplicate file. In the duplicate scene, the scene will obviosly look different when you change the aspect ratio, but since it is a duplicate, you can adjust the focal length and composition of the scene to suit the new aspect ratio.
If your media publishing site is social media and therefore on phones; you want a square so that the bottom 1/2 of the screen is available for description, reaction, & comments.
lolwut?
Just add a second camera to your scene, or save out a camera preset. Duplicating the entire scene file is just overkill.
Just personal preference but I find 16:9 too wide and I don't care about filling the whole screen so I tend to opt for 5:4 (1600 x 1280). I seem to be able to get close enough to my characters without having lots of extra image real estate to the sides. It just suits my eye for composition. I don't really experiment with different camera formats either - I tend to leave the camera on default frame width and focal length other than when I switch on DOF.
Then again, I never upload my images for viewing by anyone and only look at them myself for a short while after the project is finished. Then it is on to the fun of creating the next story.
I save out the render settings (mainly because some products take the liberty of changing all the settings to what the PA thinks is best). I also use a dedicated file as a default load but that is mainly for setting up and dressing my individual characters and is not the same screen format I use for my story scenes.
This is why I have Preferences -> Scene -> Ignore on Backdrop color, Backdrop Image, and Render Settings. I might turn that off once when loading something neew initially for some test renders to see how the creator intended it but in use , almost all the time, I prefer my own settings.
I don't know. To me it just doesn't "feel" right watching a scifi flick without those letterbox bars at the top and bottom on my big screen. Something about them just says SciFi to me. PLUS, as a bonus, since I am hearing impaired, having captioning on and adjusting them to fit in the bottom black bar is a bonus. Might be as I came from the era of 5:4 screens and as tech advanced, having top and bottom black bars just came with the territory. I don't even notice them anymore but somehow miss them when they aren't on a scifi flick.
I'm old school. Unless I'm making desktop wallpapers I work in either 4:3 or 3:4. Wallpapers get rendered in the ratio of the display itself.