New arrival to the forum here so thank in advance for any advice.
We’ve noticed a significant drop in quality over the last few years when exporting an animation from Sketch in video format.
We seem to have only one video export file format which is mp4, and the video is blocky, ant-aliased lines are clumsy, and colours are washed out in comparison to the model file I am viewing on my screen.
We use this tool regularly as designers to quickly demonstrate a design to our clients and the scene allow us to give a quick animation showing lots of different views. We would prefer not to have to use secondary rendering or exporting software. We have looked at Enscape, before Studio became available and it does not seem to offer the same functionality for exporting an animation. based on this lens in the sky model.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be helpful.
We are using the latest version of SkecthUp on a Mac Studio Apple M1 Max with 32gb of memory.
What settings are you applying in the Export Options?
Is it possible to share a typical SketchUp file and the MP4 you are getting from it? It would be interesting to compare the results from another computer. I’ve done a number of animation exports in MP4 format without any issues. Is this a hardware (graphics) issue or something else?
Happy to share the files, it may be the graphics card I guess, but with a Mac Studio I’m not sure any of the setting are very accessible. I’ve also screen grabbed the settings.
I’ve got the file and I’ve loked at the MP4 and export options. I don’t see anything especially bad about the MP4. It looks like what I see in the SketchUp file as I step through the scenes. Are you expecting something more photorealistic? Or what would you want to change about it?
Thanks Dave, I’m struggling to see that file? Don’t know if you can drop it in the DB folder I shared.
The screen versions when we’re modelling looks so much better, but maybe that is in relation to the mp4 compression. I can’t work out whether we should have alternative video output options. Or maybe that we 've just got great screens!
There is subtle difference, which seems bizarre, the colours in your export are colder and brighter, and there’s slightly more clarity in the lines but that comes and goes. I presume that would be a graphics card issue? And I’ve no idea how I might resolve that… your export is on the RHS
Yes. A graphics card issue. I didn’t do anything but open your SketchUp file and export the MP4. I’m using a PC with an old Nvidia graphics card. Unfortunately with Mac you don’t have an option to choose the graphics card. If the appearance of these video exports are really critical you might consider getting a PC with a current Nvidia graphics card to use at least for the export.
A couple of notes on your model: It would be wise to keep your model closer to the origin. Currently this one is about 50 meters away. That’s not a huge distance but if you allow your models to get further from the origin you could have graphics issues. Actually it wouldn’t hurt to try moving the model to the origin and set up your scenes again. Maybe there’ll be an improvement.
It would be a good idea to utilize groups and components more in your model. There’s a lot of loose geometry.
For your SketchUp template you should turn off Length Snapping for Units. This will help you with more precise modeling.
Also make sure you are using tags correctly as you go. All edges and faces should be created and remain untagged.
Purging unused stuff once in a while is also a good idea.
Thanks Dave, I really appreciate your time. Good points well made! Albeit this model was a quick output to develop a design for an extension so I was flying fast and loose.
It would be nice if they were better… but whether I’m buying a pcs to do that is whole different question!
I’ve not come across a program I could export an animation from in the same way as with the native exporter in sketch. If you do anything let me know, that might be an option for us.
I don’t know of anything that will export an animation directly from SketchUp other than the built in exporter. I expect you would have to go through a rendering application but then youhave the time invested in the rendering.
Just a thought – what if you turned off the edges and profiles in the style? Would that give you an acceptable animation? A render typically doesn’t have any black edges like a SketchUp model normally displays.
Hi, we’ve been having fun with Enscape which allows us to quickly chuck out a half-decent animation…
I assume that works on a Mac ?
You might like to trial it…
Here’s a little something we cooked up:
I know you’ve had a long chat about this already. I just wanted to add that you are exporting a video that is 1920x1080, and viewing it on a screen that is 3072 x 1920 or 3546x2234. Exporting your animation as 4k might make it look better. If you only need 1920x1080 in the end, exporting as 4k and letting QuickTime Player make the 1080p version may give you better antialiasing.
Here is a temporary link to a 4k export from SketchUp, and a 1080p export of that from QuickTime Player:
I tried to find a bad looking frame from the video to show how it looks, but couldn’t really find one! Here is an example from one of the quicker moving transitions.
Thanks, looks good . We know that Enscape is a great product, unfortunately we don’t have the time to invest in pulling the model in to another program to set up the textures and cameras for this type of output. We are quite happy with the slightly cartoonish nature of the sketch animations, but the quality of the movie is really our concern. Thanks again!
Hi Colin, thank you! That’s a great suggestion and considerably improves the quality of the output video, even when shrinking back down. I’d forgotten we could custom export the file format as there is currently no 4k export preset on my sketchup.
Bizarrely on a Mac exporting from QT to a smaller file format changes it to a .mov file but I am sure that is fine for most people, and there are probably other file format apps we could use if the mp4 file type was critical.
Your file does still look better, but that must be a hardware issue. I’ve never been convinced that this Mac M1 Max is as good as I was told it was! Should learn not to be an early adopter…
Good points well made! Albeit this model was a quick output to develop a design for an extension so I was flying fast and loose.
. We know that Enscape is a great product, unfortunately we don’t have the time to invest in pulling the model in to another program to set up the textures and cameras for this type of output. We are quite happy with the slightly cartoonish nature of the sketch animations, but the quality of the movie is really our concern. Thanks again!